


What Dwells in Us

by Thymesis



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Banthas, Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Sexual Content, Force Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Magic Realism, Obi-Wan Needs a Hug, Obi-Wan-in-Exile, POV First Person, Pre-ANH, Psychological Trauma, Recovery, Sand People/Tusken Raiders, Surreal, Tatooine, Wacky Force Wizardry Alert, Worldbuilding, post-ROTS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-09-29
Packaged: 2018-10-03 06:29:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 61,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10237940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thymesis/pseuds/Thymesis
Summary: Three months have passed since Obi-Wan Kenobi arrived on Tatooine. He has settled into a quiet, uneventful life in the desert, watching over the infant Luke from afar.Alas, his life isn’t going to stay quiet or uneventful for much longer.OR:The story of Obi-Wan’s years in exile I have always wanted to read. (Yes, it is written in first person, and I know a lot of people hate first person. But this serves a very specific aesthetic purpose; if you think the subject matter may interest you, please try giving it a chance anyway.)





	1. Act One, Scene I

**Author's Note:**

> “What Dwells in Us” represents an attempt to write the sort of novel-length, Obi-Wan-in-Exile-on-Tatooine story that I would like to read: slashy but otherwise (more or less) canon-compliant. There are several subplots developing simultaneously at any one time, and there are also elements of magic realism. I have been told that this does not make for an _easy_ reading experience, but I do hope that you will find it to be an engaging one! 
> 
> My goal here is, first and foremost, to understand how Obi-Wan is able to survive—and possibly even thrive—all while keeping himself and Luke hidden from the Empire _and_ exploring mysteries of the Force that will allow him to persist after death. I also take the ordeal of war and traumatic loss that Obi-Wan has so recently experienced with utmost seriousness. As such, this story begins in an extremely dark place. Things will get (much) better, I promise, but the rating is “Mature/Explicit” right from the get-go for a reason, and there are surprises along the way that sensitive readers may find very triggering. You’ve been warned!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The start of a seemingly ordinary day.

**“Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die.”**

**– E.M. Forster, _Howards End_**

 

I have not seen my lightsaber in three months. I am looking at it now.

It remains where I hid it, under the false bottom of the clothes chest at the foot of my bed. This is not a deception meant to withstand a thorough search of the premises of my new settlers’ homestead. However, carrying a lightsaber in the present circumstances, even concealed on my person, would be tantamount to suicide—and my life is not my own. I still have a duty, one I’m determined to discharge faithfully.

I feel no particular attachment to my lightsaber. It is practically new, constructed late in my tenure as a General of the Grand Army of the Republic and optimized for the life and death struggles of the battlefield. A weapon of galactic war has no place in the desert wastelands of remote Tatooine, or so I hope. If perchance there is need, it will be safe and sound and reasonably accessible. For what remains, well, I must trust in the Force.

My lightsaber is not alone in the chest. Lying parallel alongside it is a second lightsaber. Unlike my own stripped-down, functional design, this one is a single, solid cylinder of gleaming, chrome-plated durasteel. I reach out and allow my fingers to brush lightly along its length. Beautiful and strong, like Anakin Skywalker himself.

Oh Anakin…

No. Why do I torment myself by looking at impotent symbols of an unalterable past? My brother is dead, and I am on my knees before this false-bottomed chest like a grieving man before an open grave. It’s fitting, perhaps, that our lightsabers shall be at rest together beneath a humble pile of clothing. After all, the one who called himself Obi-Wan Kenobi died with him.

Keep your concentration here and now where it belongs, Master Qui-Gon used to say.

Here, there is only Ben.

***

I awaken each morning shortly before sunrise.

My manner of dress is much the same as always. I have dispensed with the ceremonial tabards and obi of a Jedi, but loose-fitting, rough-spun tunics and trousers are worn by Humans of modest means on a thousand different worlds, including Tatooine. I do not need any light to see what I’m doing. And truthfully, it’s better that way—I won’t be tempted to look at the lightsabers again like I did before bed last night.

A pair of macrobinoculars hang from a peg beside my front door. I grab them as I slip into my boots and head outside.

The homestead consists of the main living quarters and an outbuilding meant to be used as an eopie stable. Both feature characteristic, domed roofs. Sturdy adobe walls enclose both structures into a single, rectangular compound. The entirety of the property is situated atop a high plateau at the edge of the Jundland Wastes where it meets the Dune Sea. It sat abandoned and empty for at least fifty years prior to my recent occupation, too far removed from any towns or settlements and much too vulnerable to marauding Sand People to be practical over the long term for ordinary settlers. These liabilities become valuable assets, however, to Jedi Masters who do not wish to be found.

There are commanding views of the terrain from all sides. The air is still and cool. I take my usual seat on a convenient outcropping of rock to watch Tatooine’s twin suns climb the cloudless skies.

A herd of wild banthas forage on the dunes below. They move slowly, their heads down and occasionally swishing from side to side to uncover the tops of tough Tatooine sandgrass. Banthas consume nothing else and are, as far as I’m aware, the only animal on the planet that can eat the plant in any meaningful quantity because their wide mouths are full of teeth that never stop growing. Sandgrass accumulates so much silicon in its leaves and stems that it would soon wear everything else’s teeth down to the gums. They’d eventually die of starvation…well, if the monosilicic acid didn’t fatally poison them first.

I see the banthas most mornings; this particular herd appears to be resident to this area. From this distance, they look like little brown lumps. In reality, I know, they average half again as tall as I am at the shoulder and weigh several hundred kilograms. The macrobinoculars have allowed me to examine them closely and learn their habits. Banthas are simple creatures with simple lives, and I readily confess that bantha-watching has become a bit of a diverting pastime.

There are twenty-three individuals, including three sub-adult females and six yearlings that have been weaned since my arrival. There were also four sub-adult males, recognizable by the greater length and curvature of their horns, but these males were driven from the herd and its territory approximately three weeks ago.

I do not know where these males went. Do they become solitary? Or are there male bantha herds roaming the Dune Sea somewhere beyond the horizon line? Certainly, I have not yet seen any mature adult males near my settler’s homestead. Perhaps the presence of a resident herd acts as a deterrent to potential interlopers.

Hmm, it looks like the banthas are on the move again. The herd is led by a matriarch—perhaps she gave some signal to the group that I cannot yet detect—with a broken right horn. In any case, they all lift their heads, shake their woolly coats, and start walking southward in a raggedly formed queue with the matriarch in the lead. The yearlings, their fur short enough that the bottom halves of their spindly legs are still visible, trot along with youth’s irrepressible energy at their mothers’ sides. After ten minutes or so, the herd has disappeared over the ridge of a dune. They probably won’t be back until tomorrow.

I point my macrobinoculars in the direction of the Lars moisture farm. Nothing appears amiss. All seems well. And now the winking stars are gone, and the reds and oranges of sunrise have lightened to azure blue. It is time, I think, to go back inside and break my fast.

***

I burned the bread again. This is the third time this week, unfortunately.

Thing is, the dust and the sand get _everywhere_ , and I find myself constantly tidying up. Cleaning relaxes me; my mind becomes as calm and empty as my home becomes free of grime. Today, I had decided to focus on the refresher.

A refresher without a sonic shower, let alone running water, may seem strange, but such facilities are the norm in the remoter areas of Tatooine. All it is, really, is a room with a low stool and a toilet pan. Sweet bathing oils and exfoliating stones are stored in a small cabinet, and I have a basin and wall-mounted mirror for daily grooming. It doesn’t mean cleaning is any less of a chore, though, and I quickly lose track of the time. I come back to myself only when the smoke and the smell alert me to my latest kitchen disaster.

Ah, how Dex would be laughing if he knew. During the final months of the war, increasing public hostility toward Non-Humans could be felt even in districts as historically diverse and cosmopolitan as CoCo Town. Yet Dex’s Diner remained defiantly open in the face of the mass boycotts, if not outright vandalism, of business establishments owned by Non-Human sentients. I wonder where Dex is now. Last I heard, he was still flipping burgers—widely reputed to be the best on Coruscant. I hope that’s still the case. What sort of culinary miracles would a master like Dex be able to work in my primitive homesteader’s kitchen?

To term my kitchen “primitive” is not an exercise in arch moral judgment; it is merely a statement of fact. The homestead came equipped with a dry sink, a stove, and an oven for food preparation. For storage, there is an underground larder and hanging cupboards. There is no running water (of course). None of it is electrical. The stove is gas-powered, and the oven, well, the less said about that, the better! Never in a million years would it have occurred to me that “bantha poodoo” isn’t just something the locals say when they are upset.

Fuel of both, err, varieties can be purchased in town, but given the number of banthas in the vicinity, I need only make the occasional gas purchase. While yes, it is true that Senator Bail Organa has provided me with enough untraceable currency to last me five lifetimes on Tatooine, a stranger wantonly throwing credits around attracts attention, and that is not something I wish to do. I need to limit my expenditures as much as possible.

I’ve already sold the eopie I purchased upon arrival at the Mos Eisley spaceport. She was a lovely animal and a boon companion for my solitude, but she was also a significant financial burden—one which, on the balance, I could not afford. The way things are going, what with all of my burnt and wasted bread, I will have money enough from her sale to last me another month. After that, I will be dipping into Bail’s funds again unless I manage to find something suitable for barter or trade.

I don’t have any ideas about that yet. But whatever that something is, it can’t be anything that makes me stand out. So needless to say, flashy uses of the Force are absolutely out of the question. I’m expecting to be struck by a flash of inspiration instead.

Right. Any day now.

Oh dear. In the meantime, there’s nothing for it. I have done my best to pick off the charred portions of my flatbread, but what remains, paired with a few slices of hard sausage and a bit of yogurt, makes for a decidedly meager, unsatisfying breakfast. The instant caf I purchased in Mos Eisley on a whim hardly makes up for it.

Clearly, I will need to go into Anchorhead and buy myself some bread.

Maybe I should spring for a cookbook too. If I can find one for sale anywhere.

***

No cookbooks—or indeed anything that might truly count as civilized culture—are available for purchase in Anchorhead. I do buy a large package of pre-made flatbread that should last me nearly a month, provided I am careful, along with some other sundry provisions.

A Jawa sandcrawler is parked on the outskirts of the town, their scavenged wares on display. Most of the merchandise consists of dubiously refurbished droids, but out of the corner of my eye I noticed an only slightly cracked solar panel. I wonder if I ought to reconsider my homestead’s lack of electricity. Why _don’t_ I live in greater comfort? I could have a HoloNet hookup and a sonic shower if I really wanted them. All I need is a solar generator—it’s not like sunlight is in short supply. Am I just trying to punish myself?

Still, I probably shouldn’t buy electrical equipment from the Jawas. While dealing in this respect with Jawas would undoubtedly attract less attention than dealing with Humans, I don’t have the expertise to fix it myself if anything goes wrong, and their goods are not known for reliability. I’d probably end up electrocuting myself, or something would explode in my face, and it’s not like I can discharge my duty at present if I am already dead.

There isn’t much to be said about the town proper: The main attractions are the market and cantinas. Pretty much everyone in the area is economically dependent upon moisture farming, either directly and indirectly. That fact alone makes me unusual, and I do my utmost to minimize my presence in town. It’s one of those places where everyone knows everyone and the rare stranger garners plenty of attention.

Speaking of, there are two beings here in the market today whom I have never seen before. One swarthy Human and one blue-skinned Rodian. Both male. They are city folk…and not from Mos Eisley either. Something about their mannerisms, their sartorial taste, tells me this. Though I do not sense any danger, any threat to myself or anybody else from them, out of sheer curiosity I edge in unobtrusively closer so that I can listen in on their conversation.

“Great. We’ll take two dozen cases,” the Rodian is saying to a food vendor. He hands over a credit chip. It looks like they are purchasing bulk rations.

They begin loading the cases into a beat up, rusted landspeeder. Perhaps they are on some lengthy overland journey? Whatever their plans may be, they do not seem to be in any particular hurry, and they chat idly to each other as they work.

“What do you think it is, anyway? A droid?” the Human asks his companion.

“No way,” the Rodian replies. “I know my droids. It’s a lifeform of some sort, count on that. Not the right size to be your standard-issue clone trooper. Could be a cyborg.”

“Ha! Can you imagine?!” the Human crows. “Our illustrious _Emperor_ ,” his voice drips with sarcastic venom, “with his very own personal General Grievous. Another tyrant—precisely what the galaxy needs. Says it all, really…”

“Shhh, not so loud,” the Rodian admonishes the Human with a worried glance over one shoulder.

“Oh, gimme a break. Relax. What’s Palpatine going to do to me here on the ass end of the Outer Rim? Strike me down with a bolt of lightning?” the Human scoffs.

The Rodian’s snout retracts almost into his skull as he passes the last case to the Human for loading. “I don’t like it, is what I mean. And I feel bad for the Wookiees. This ‘Lord Vader’ just came out of nowhere…”

Next thing I know, I’m standing in the cantina adjacent to the market. I don’t remember how I got there. I feel dizzy, lightheaded. A rebroadcast of the HoloNet main channel is playing on a screen above the bar.

 _I see him_.

He is there, at parade rest, standing slightly behind and to the left of Palpatine as the newly enthroned Emperor addresses a packed outdoor press conference about—oh stars, no—the quelling of a violent uprising of Wookiees on Kashyyyk. He is garbed entirely in black armor; lights blink on a complicated control panel on his chest. A voluminous cloak that reminds me troublingly of Count Dooku’s blows gently in the wind. A mask boasting large crimson lenses and a protruding mouth grille cover his face. He is much too tall. And that mask, along with the helmet, makes it impossible to tell—

Abruptly, the feed switches to shaky battle footage recorded earlier in the week. There are wroshyr trees looming in the background, so this must be Kashyyyk. A blurry, black-armored figure leaps into the frame and slays three Wookiees with a lightsaber. The blade is crimson, but I would know that technique, that sheer exuberance, that _élan_ , anywhere. I know it better than I know myself.

My breath catches. My heart is caught in a vise. I am weeping.

The feed switches again to a news correspondent. “Our sources have identified the being in this footage as ‘Darth Vader,’ a so-called ‘Dark Lord of the Sith.’ Further, they have confirmed that this ‘Lord Vader’ is in the personal service of Emperor Palpatine,” she announces breathlessly.

No, it can’t be possible! I watched him _burn_!

Darth Vader survived Mustafar, and he will crave vengeance. He will certainly hunt me down. For all I know, he could be on Tatooine right now.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) The first 311 words of this chapter were previously posted as the short one-shot [Buried Beneath](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8627113). I’m still not entirely sure if I have the spiritual will for this project, but after writing a [pulpy longform Mortis mpreg fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8673940) and [several unusual slash pairings](http://archiveofourown.org/series/670481) (mostly fluffy), I’ve ended up circling back to it after all. We’ll see how it goes! 
> 
> (2) Everything written here about the natural history of banthas comes straight out of my head.
> 
> (3) I decided to use a first person POV so that the story may remain agnostic about the protagonist’s chosen name and the present tense to accentuate his determination—in and of itself a coping strategy—to focus on the “here and now.” However, I have a sneaking suspicion that these choices might not be popular with readers. What do you think? **August 23, 2017 Update:** Yep, suspicion with regard to first person POV confirmed!


	2. Act One, Scene II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obi-Wan visits and is visited.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven’t yet read the content warning in the Author’s Note at the beginning of this story, I _strongly_ suggest you go back and read it before deciding whether or not to proceed.

When I return to myself, I am alone and standing in a narrow, shadowed alleyway behind the cantina. I am calm. The tears on my cheeks have dried some time ago; the crusty salt residue is easily scrubbed away. I cannot remember making my exit after watching that HoloNet news broadcast, but I must have done. And without causing too much of a commotion, thankfully.

It’s a small victory over my own appalling weakness. I’ll take it.

I don’t know quite what to believe or what to do. But I also realize that there is nothing I _can_ do at this very moment, other than to spend the afternoon doing what I had been planning to do today anyway: checking in on Luke.

Luke…

_Anakin…_

Bury the feelings down deep—they cannot, must not, be allowed to betray us.

The mind must be as a sarcophagus entombing the heart.

***

Beru is there to greet me when I arrive at the Lars moisture farm. Her husband is absent, servicing vaporators on the outskirts of the property.

It is just as well. Owen doesn’t like me. I don’t take it personally, of course; his animosity isn’t really directed at me in particular but rather at the Jedi Order in general. He blames us for his stepbrother’s untimely passing—the Jedi “betrayal” of the Republic has become common knowledge—and it’s rather difficult to dispute his conclusion. Even still. Family comes first, second, and last to simple beings like Owen; he took little Luke in gladly. I suppose Owen’s inability to father children was also a consideration. When Luke grows older, his assistance on the farm will become invaluable.

Luke will need training in the use of the Force if he is to fulfill his destiny. This is not something we have discussed, but there will be time enough for that in the future.

Presuming any of us _have_ a future.

 _He_ does. He is alive.

No, no, no. Don’t think.

At present, the Lars are shorthanded and struggling. I stop by the farm at least once a week to lend whatever assistance I can, and while Owen would undoubtedly prefer I never came around at all, he is not in any real position to turn my help down, whatever humble form it takes. On this occasion, I give Beru a canister of powdered milk I purchased along with my bread. It is imported from Naboo and heavily fortified with essential nutrients. She accepts it gratefully.

This is the hottest part of the afternoon. We are indoors, below ground. Luke has just been fed, and Beru has put him down for a nap nearby. This gives her a welcome opportunity to rest as well, and she sinks into a chair with a soft sigh and beckons for me to join her.

“It’s hard to have a baby during the dry season,” Beru remarks as I take a seat adjacent.

“Tatooine has a dry season?” I ask, gently disbelieving. It never rains here, as far as I am aware.

“Of course.” She shrugs. “There is no fresh milk until the banthas calve again.”

Ah. Luke is still much too young to be weaned, and obviously Beru cannot nurse him herself.

It’s easy to forget that last bit—Beru is such a natural. But then, she _is_ the eldest of eight Whitesun children, and she has plenty of experience from caring for her younger siblings. Yet, for as long as she is married to Owen, she will bear no children of her own. I know she loves him deeply, but I also wonder if she has any regrets. It would be too impolite of me to ask.

Luke begins to fuss in his bassinet. Beru makes to stand, but I forestall her movement with a gesture. She smiles in acquiescence and sits back down. I scoot forward, still in my seat, so that I am close enough to the bassinet to reach in and place a hand on the top of Luke’s head. I use a touch of the Force to sooth him. He goes quiet and quickly falls asleep.

Beru smiles again. “You have a gift,” she says.

Indeed.

We enjoy a companionable silence. Beru relaxes. Her eyes start to drift shut.

There is a soft chime. Beru’s eyes open, instantly alert. “Sounds like we have another visitor,” she says. “How unusual.”

I trail her up the stairs to the surface; something in the Force is urging me to follow. A landspeeder is parked outside, its rear storage compartment so obviously loaded down that the back end is practically scraping the ground. I recognize this vehicle immediately. It is the same one I saw in Anchorhead this morning.

And sure enough, the same young Human and Rodian males climb out to greet us.

“Beru! Long time, no see!” the Human exclaims.

“Kit,” she says, her tone familiar and warm. “And Wald,” she adds, turning to the Rodian. “What an unexpected surprise! What are the two of you doing all the way out here?”

“Well—” the Human apparently named Kit begins.

Beru shakes her head. “Explanations can wait. We should get out of the heat first. Do come inside.”

We reconvene at the Lars’s dining table over a shared pot of bitter black tea. Finally, there is an opportunity to make proper introductions. I am introduced simply as Ben, a neighbor of the Lars and newcomer to Tatooine. The two youths, as it turns out, hail from Mos Espa. Apparently, they both knew Shmi back when she was living as Watto’s slave. They are dismayed to hear of her and her husband’s recent passing. Life is short, the desert is cruel, and the Tuskens are barbaric monsters, oh yes, yes, many sympathetic noises all around.

I do not ask if they used to know Shmi’s son as well—I have more than a sneaking suspicion the answer would not please me to hear—and they do not volunteer that information.

Moreover, I notice that they both seem to assume that the infant Luke is Beru’s own child and that she does nothing to disabuse them of their misapprehension. Beru is a frontier woman, a survivor, and she is nothing if not savvy. That gives me hope.

“Wald and I, we’re heading into the Wastes,” Kit explains. “We need a six-week supply of potable water, and we were wondering if you have a hitch-tank we can rent.”

Beru’s brow furrows.

“We’ll pay upfront, Beru. No worries there. We can put a deposit down on the hitch-tank too, if that helps,” Wald hastens to add.

Her worried expression doesn’t lift. “What could you possibly want out there?” she asks.

“We’re going to look for krayt dragon pearls,” Kit says almost apologetically and scratches the top of his head.

“You must be joking,” Beru says, voice flat.

Krayt dragon pearls form slowly over many years in the gizzards of krayt dragons. They are exquisitely beautiful, iridescent across both the visible and ultraviolet spectrums of light, and a single pearl sells for tens of thousands of credits. The problem, of course, is that a pearl can only be collected after the pearl-bearing krayt dragon in question is dead…which means you have to find a body to scavenge or you have to kill it yourself. Either option involves getting within unhealthy proximity to the Dune Sea’s apex predator which, although preying primarily on banthas, would be delighted to supplement its diet with succulent sentient morsels like Kit and Wald.

“No! We got a great lead from a scavenger Wald overheard talking in the shop. They say that Sarlacc Tooth Ridge—” Kit seems to remember suddenly that I’m there and cuts himself off abruptly. “Sorry, it’s a secret.”

“Please, don’t mind me. Treasure hunting in krayt dragon lairs up on Sarlacc Tooth Ridge?” I snort theatrically. I have not yet seen a krayt dragon myself—they are nocturnal, sheer size providing staying power even at night—but their deep-throated, reptilian roars off in the far distance rouse me from my slumber occasionally. “I’d sooner dive headfirst into a sarlacc pit,” I assure him. He appears assuaged.

“Kit’s met a girl,” Wald chimes in, “but he’s still owes too much on his emancipation. Even a single pearl would generate the funds he needs to dower a marriage proposal.”

“You’re going to get yourselves killed, and that’s not how you impress a girl, Kit.” Beru’s expression is implacable.

“Look, Beru,” Kit wheedles. He digs a fistful of Huttese hard currency out from a pocket of his trousers and lays it on the table. “We said we’d pay you upfront. This is everything I have saved. It ought to be plenty. You’ve got nothing to lose.”  

I know then that Beru will cave. I can see it as if it has already happened. She and Owen need the credits, and while they are too proud to take more than token gifts from the likes of me, Kit and Wald are offering them a fair price for goods and services in which they specialize.

Filling the hitch-tank with water and attaching into the back of the landspeeder is a straightforward procedure that takes but a moment. Kit and Wald are eager to continue their journey while they still have daylight on their side, and before long we are all outside again, saying our goodbyes. These are short and unsentimental, for Tatooine is an unforgiving planet.

“Listen. If you run into any unexpected problems, you can find me on the northeastern edge of the Dune Sea, beyond the Dusty Canyon. I live high up on a plateau. Can’t miss it,” I tell them just as they are about to depart.

Really, I ought to leave well enough alone. Kit and Wald are not my problems. Unfortunately, old habits are wont to die hard.

***

Virtually all food commodities on Tatooine, with the notable exceptions of bantha-derived meat and dairy products, are imported from offworld. This includes basic staples favored by Humans such as grain. Imagine: It’s actually less expensive to transport flour through the vacuum of space than it is to make the desert grow green with corn.

The flour used to make my newly purchased flatbread is no exception, although it is so brittle and dry that one would be forgiven for thinking it was baked from ground up sandgrass. It wouldn’t even be called a loaf of bread on Coruscant; it would be a biscuit or a cracker. Whatever the word, though, this bread tastes no better than dust, and forcing it down, along a few more slices of hard sausage and a cup of soured blue milk, has me wondering yet again if I’m actually _trying_ to punish myself.

No. If I’m honest, it’s that I just can’t be bothered to make the effort. What does it matter? What does _any of it_ matter? Lack of electricity, of running water, of entertaining variety in my diet—these things are not life-threatening.

I have finished consuming my evening meal and am about to make ready for bed when I sense a presence approaching. It—they?—are past the main gate and heading impatiently toward my front door.

Unbelievable. Kit and Wald have been exploring the Jundland Wastes for less than half a day, and they are in need of assistance already. Beru would be laughing if she knew.

I key the lock. The door opens—

And Darth Vader, exactly as I saw him on that HoloNet broadcast, strides into my home.

My eyes flick leftward as I feint to the right, in the direction of my bedroom and the lightsabers beneath the false bottom of the clothes chest. I had hoped that he would take the bait and attack my left side, but of course he sees straight through this double ploy. He doesn’t even bother drawing his lightsaber. He simply makes a grab for my right arm.

There is a sickening, crunching pop and a white hot starburst of pain as my shoulder is torn from its socket and I am spun around and slammed bodily, face first, into the nearest wall. He has broken my nose. I can’t breathe because blood is pouring down the back of my throat. I cough up a bloody spray that stains the whitewashed adobe crimson and gasp desperately for air.

My mind is fuzzy; my pulse is racing. I am trying to control my physiological reaction to the injury and find for some unknown reason that I cannot. “Ana…kin…” I wheeze.

He has me pinned to the wall. I am helpless. His manipulation of the Force is lifting me off of my feet so that my toes barely graze the floor. I can feel him behind me. I turn my head to the side, to look at him.

All I can see is the mask and my own desperation, my own horror, reflected in those depthless crimson lenses.

Then he is so close to me that I cannot even see that. The sharp edges of his chest control panel dig into the small of my back. The silken fabric of his cloak brushes against the fingers of my useless right hand. Gusts of artificially regulated aspiration tickle the delicate skin behind my ear. They seem louder than a typhoon.

“You will pay for what you have done,” he says. His first words. This is not the low, sweet voice of Anakin Skywalker. This is the affectless, mechanical rumble of a droid’s vocoder.

“I-I…” My speech is more of a sob than words. I try coughing again, to clear the blood clotting my airways.

I still can’t move, but he is not continuing his attack. Huge hands wrap themselves around my neck, and for a moment I almost hope that he’ll squeeze and end it all for me. But then they release, begin to slide down my sides, and come to rest on my hips. Thick, gloved fingers dig into the flesh there suggestively.

“You said you loved me. Yet you betrayed me and left me to die in agony.” The vocoder makes it sound like a simple statement of fact.

“No!” I feel my stomach roiling. If only I could see his face, however badly burned and deformed it must be! “Oh, Anakin, please, I didn’t _know_ —”

My pleading cuts off abruptly as the hands at my hips reach underneath the waistband of my trousers and rip them open at the seams. My buttocks are bare, exposed. His knee is between my legs, forcing them open. His groin is pressed against me, hard, hot, needy flesh where there ought to be only impersonal plasteel.

This is rage, transmuted into lust for domination. This is everything that we never were, corrupted by the dark side.

This is everything we could have been…had he just… _had I just…_

“I can feel it; guilt consumes you,” he says.

I have one awful, endless second to contemplate what we both know he is going to do. And then he pushes inside. I have never before been taken in this way, either with my consent or without it, and he is tearing me open. It is agony. The wetness I feel dripping slowly down my thighs must be blood.

“No… Stop… _Please…_ ” I moan.

There is no stopping him, no escape. His arms wrapped so tightly around me are a durasteel cage. The mask’s jutting mouth grille digs into the tender flesh at the join of my neck and shoulder as he thrusts, each fast entry and retreat meant to maximize my suffering. The pain is worse than my dislocated shoulder, than my broken nose, for this is an assault on that which is buried deep inside. This is an assault on my heart.

“Does it hurt? Go ahead, Obi-Wan. Scream. There is no one to save you.”

He gives a savage twist of his hips, and my nerve endings light up with an explosive flash. I do as he commands, finally, but not from the pain—

The sound of my own scream awakens me.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Every fanfic I’ve ever read attributes the Lars family’s lack of children to Beru. I thought I’d make Owen the one who is infertile here, just to change things up a bit.
> 
> (2) I don’t like loading my tags up with story spoilers, so there’s no warning for the violent rape in this chapter explicitly spelled out. If you feel strongly that this deliberate omission is an error on my part, please write me with your reasons. I’m entirely prepared to be persuaded to think differently. :-)


	3. Act One, Scene III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a very traumatic night, Obi-Wan reconsiders his priorities.

Why can’t I move? Have I been restrained whilst I slept?!

Wait, it is only blankets and bedclothes twisted around my body and tangled up in my legs. I can free myself. Oh, stars—

I tumble out of bed and half-run, half-crawl on unsteady hands and knees, to the refresher. I am shaking, panting, and every muscle in my belly is cramping painfully. Choked cries are spilling from my mouth as I am rocked by an orgasm more intense than I would have believed possible. I make a blind, desperate grab for the toilet pan and manage to maneuver it into the correct position a split second before my stomach forcibly empties itself of its contents.

The sickly, acrid taste in my mouth is bile. Not blood. My nose is straight and unbroken, and I am able to breathe freely. My right shoulder is limber. My nether regions are— No, I do not think I have been physically injured in any way.

Yet I feel wholly incapable of rising from the refresher floor. There is something comforting about its cool, smooth surface against my fevered, sweating skin. Trembling, I curl into a fetal position and slide one hand down to my groin. It is sticky and wet. The muscles of my anus and rectum are contracting and releasing spasmodically, and I discover that I still have an erection—the lightest of touches triggers a residual pulse of semen and a throb of pleasure so horrific and sickening that I moan and practically vomit again.

A loud sob tears itself from my throat with one last dry heave. My eyes are nearly glued shut with shed tears. I curl into an even tighter ball and rock back and forth. I whimper. What just happened to me?! Never in my life have I experienced anything quite like this. It felt completely real. Far too real to be a mere dream. It genuinely felt like Anakin was— Like _Darth Vader_ was—

Violating me. No, if nothing else, I must be honest with myself: He was _raping_ me…

…and there is a part of me that wanted him to. There is a part of me that liked it.

I recoil from myself in disgust.

Master Qui-Gon, where are you?! I was told that you would train me to pass beyond—to overcome—the limitations of this weak and transient flesh. Since coming to Tatooine, I have heard the sibilant hiss of the wind through grains of sand, the lowing of the wild bantha herds, and the roar of distant krayt dragons. But I have been met with endless, unfathomable silence in the Force. Why, now, have I been forsaken?! What am I doing wrong?! I need your guidance, your wisdom. Please.

The universe, as ever, echoes silent to my ears, and I face it alone.

***

I lay here on the floor where I fell, frozen in a paroxysm of grief and self-loathing, for untold hours. When I do finally stir, it is still dark, still night. I do not, however, need any light to see in my own home, and in the end, I find myself tidying the refresher for the second day in a row. Each and every trace of errant bodily fluid is systematically removed, and as each surface attains its usual unsullied, polished shine, my mind is returned to some reasonable measure of clarity and calm.

I am also dirty, of course. After finishing with the ’fresher proper, I anoint myself with modest dabs of fragrant oil and scrub myself all over so thoroughly I’m soon in danger of rubbing myself raw. It is strange not to have fresh water in which to bathe, and I realize that I miss it. What wouldn’t I give for the hot sluice of a shower jet, never mind total head-to-toe immersion in a proper bathtub?! Even after a thorough exfoliation with a rectangular piece of pumice, I am ashamed to admit that I continue to feel distinctly unclean. Something about removing flakes of dried semen from the hair between one’s buttocks without the benefit of water, one might reckon, will have that insalubrious effect.

There is a shallow refuse pit dug a short distance outside of the walls of the homestead compound. It positioned near enough to the vaporator that any excess moisture inevitably making its way there can be reclaimed. Waste not, want not. I toss all of the soiled rags and detritus associated with my troubled night remorselessly into the pit and heave a relieved sigh.

A quick glance up at the fading stars and the soft blue-black of the sky tells me the time. Really, it’s not worth going back to sleep now—if I even could, which is doubtful—but I have another good hour at minimum before the day’s water harvest from the vaporator is ready for collection. Moreover, if I’m honest, tonight’s troubling dream makes me wary of the unexplored inner terrain of empty meditation.

In the absence of any other, more productive activity, I head toward my usual seat on the rocky outcropping overlooking the dunes.

The resident bantha herd is so near that I do not need macrobinoculars to see them clearly. Something… _different_ appears to be going on. There is an unusual level of social activity underway—the twenty-three females I counted yesterday have been joined by four males. These are not, I conclude quickly, the same four sub-adult males that previously departed the herd. Quite the contrary, these newcomers are fully grown bull banthas, their horns sweeping, heavy, and magnificent.

And grazing on sandgrass does not appear to be uppermost in many of the banthas’ minds. These big males, I realize, have come courting. I watch with keen interest as one of the males, its broad, woolly forehead held at an odd, protruding forward angle, approaches a female with a yearling calf by her side. When she notices him, she turns to face him head on and gnashes those big, tough teeth in his face, perilously close to tip of his nose. Rebuffed, he puts a respectful distance between himself and the female and her calf.

The three sub-adult females are similarly unenthusiastic about the males’ attentions. I watch as one of them flees a male that is nearly twice her size by putting herself behind a mother with a calf. This mother, like the one before it, threatens the male with her teeth—even though she is not the direct object of his attentions—and he too backs away. The sub-adult is left to continue feeding unmolested.

There are, however, several females who, if they are not overtly welcoming the attentions of the males, at least are not aggressively opposed to them. Although they appear to be focused on the grass on the ground in front of them, these females nevertheless allow themselves to be approached from the side until the males are actually touching the females’ abdomens with their foreheads. I wonder if they can detect the females’ readiness to mate, perhaps through smell. Or perhaps they simply take their cues from the females’ behavior?

The overall visual effect, which I am able to appreciate fully from my vantage point on this high plateau, is striking: Whereas normally the bantha herd orients itself more or less in a linear formation, the arrangement looks far more circular today, with sub-adult females and mothers with calves towards the center and receptive females standing closer to the edges. The bulls themselves constitute an effective perimeter. How intriguing! I wonder how long this courtship circle will persist.

Ah, so now one of the females with a male in close attendance is doing something I have never seen a wild bantha do before: She sinks down onto the sandy ground, her legs invisible and tucked underneath her great bulk. This is obviously an invitation to mate, and the nearby male moves into position in order to mount her from behind. They remain in this state, silent and motionless, for several minutes. Then the male dismounts and dances playfully around the female, nuzzling her with his forehead and emitting a series of nasal bellows. After indulging in a few of these odd little turns, he proceeds to mount her again. I squint and peer closely down at the pair. This time, I am able to perceive a fine trembling which seems first to overtake the copulating female’s body and then her partner’s, escalating in mutual intensity until, at last, they both lapse once more into perfect stillness.

After what seems an age, the male dismounts, and the female rises to her feet. I notice, however, that he does not leave her side. Is he staying to ensure that she does not subsequently mate with a different male? Or is it that he has, in the thick, slow depths of his uncomplicated, animal consciousness, come to care for her?

Oh, to care…

I do not know the best way forward. We went to great lengths to ensure that the galaxy believes Padmé Amidala’s unborn child died with her. I have no reason to believe that our deception has failed, no reason to believe that Luke’s father may be looking for him. Conversely, I have _every_ reason to believe that Luke’s father might be looking for _me_ , and it is my duty to guarantee Luke’s safety and secure his destined future. If I am to protect him, I must protect myself—and for that I will have to take steps. No more prevarication, no more self-inflicted punishment. These are indulgences I can no longer afford in my life.

Yes, that resolution feels right. Caring for Luke effectively means caring assiduously for myself first. No more pointlessly primitive living.

Besides, even Jedi Masters in exile ought to be allowed to indulge in a bath every once in a great while, surely?

I tilt my face upward into the warm dawn light of Tatooine’s twin suns. I think I am ready to confront this new day.

***

Okay, okay, upon a measure of sensible reflection I realize that running water in the refresher of my desert homestead is probably too much to ask. A sonic shower unit shouldn’t be, though. I just need is an electrical source with which to power it.

Right.

Yesterday, I dismissed the notion of a do-it-myself solar generator—the complexity of the setup and maintenance of the equipment is virtually certain to cause me difficulties in the long run, and if there is one thing I know after thirty-nine years, it’s that the worst difficulties are almost always self-inflicted. If I had only stayed to check…with Anakin… Well, no need to belabor that point. Regardless, I cannot afford additional difficulties of the self-inflicted variety. Three months on Tatooine and I already have many more than I bargained for.

The one nice thing about living a simple life is that it is _simple_. But for Luke’s sake, I must guard against the ways in which simplicity is in danger of becoming insanity.

With that in mind, perhaps the best way forward is to do what an ordinary being of ordinary, modest resources new to the neighborhood would do: purchase a regular household utilities plan.

Tosche Station is the main power plant for this region of Tatooine, providing electricity via underground cables to nearby Anchorhead as well as to Mos Eisley further afield. The station’s founder, owner, and current manager Merl Tosche seems to have a decent local reputation, so I decide to consult with him directly about my new home’s “requirements.” I arrive at Tosche Station late in the morning to find Tosche himself out in the station yard, on his hands and knees, tinkering with an old podracer engine. He is a middle-aged Human male, gruff of demeanor, skin seared dark by the desert suns.

I introduce myself as Ben Kenobi and explain my needs to him while he polishes an injection alternator. His reply is blunt; he doesn’t bother looking up from his work. “There’s a reason why no one’s lived up that way for over fifty years. Jawas steal every piece of equipment they can lay their little paws on, and the Tuskens sabotage the power grid whenever they notice it encroaching on ‘their’ territory. Sorry to say that whoever sold you that homestead ripped you off. Land in the Jundland Wastes is worth less than nothing.”

I suppose there’s no need to tell him that the property was deeded to me free of charge by a real estate agent in Bestine who doesn’t quite, ahem, recall that her agency finally managed to unload its least desirable lot on a gullible offworlder. I was doing them a favor, really. Now they won’t have to expend valuable resources maintaining an empty settlers’ homestead.

“Surely there is something that can be done,” I say instead.

“Well…” Merl emerges from underneath the engine and sits back on his heels. He squints up at me speculatively. “You know, there might be something. Maybe we should go inside.”

He escorts me into his office, which, truthfully, looks more like a mechanic’s garage than an office. It does have an office desk and chairs, however, and after sweeping several piles of bric-à-brac out of the way, there is room enough for a proper consultation. Merl picks up a nearby datapad and waves it in my direction.

“Got this a week ago,” he says. “The new regional government for this sector of the Outer Rim is attempting to compile a complete census of Imperial subjects. I’m to hand over my customer rolls, and if I further assist them in identifying remote settlements, they will provide me with funding to hook up any unserved households to the power grid. ‘Partnership with private enterprise,’ they’re calling it. ‘Imperial overreach,’ I say. But maybe if I register your household I’d be able to afford to dig lines into the Jundland Wastes…” Merl assesses me with a speculative gleam in his eyes.

“Hmm,” I muse, stroking my chin thoughtfully. I don’t like the sound of this _at all_ but give Merl no indication of my discomfort. “Are there many unserved households in the area?”

Merl shrugs. “Nah. A few dozen moisture farms, maybe, and the one thing them farmers _don’t_ need is my solar generators,” he says.

“Why not?” I ask, feigning idle curiosity.

“They got land aplenty for their own solar panels. Difficult to maintain, those are, but I got a little side business—off the books, you know how it is—to help ’em with that.”

The screws are tightening, and Palpatine is nothing if not deviously efficient. Soon, there will be no blank spaces left anywhere on the map.

“Do you plan to participate in this partnership?” I ask. Still idle, still curious.

Merl shrugs again. “Yeah, probably. I already know everybody. I’ll just sign ’em up. Good way to earn some extra credits, if nothing else.”

This is not good. I must protect Luke, and now I discover that I risk compromising my mission by being here at Tosche Station. Looks like I will have to do my bit now to keep us off the Imperial scopes.

I reach into the Force and touch Merl’s mind. “Compiling census data on moisture farmers is a big waste of effort, and the newcomer in the Jundland Wastes is just a crazy but harmless recluse whose current situation is all but hopeless. There’s better money—not to mention more personal enjoyment—to be had in podracing,” I instruct him.

“I think you’re nuts to want to live out there by yourself, but that’s your prerogative,” Merl declares. “Now, I should be getting back to those engine repairs. Pods don’t race themselves, you know! I have some power converters for sale, practically brand new, if you change your mind.”

Merl stands up, shakes my hand in a perfunctory manner, and shows me the door.

So much for hassle-free electricity at home. I need a drink.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) The banthas in this chapter are mating in a “cush” position, like llamas and alpacas. Why? No particular reason. I just thought it would be interesting.


	4. Act One, Scene IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obi-Wan drinks alcohol before noon and catches up on the news. Then, after a second upsetting night in bed, he does a bit of impulse shopping.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brief note about pacing: This is intended as a novel-length story. So if you are wondering about the slow plot development (at least relative to some of my other writing)—please bear that in mind!

Not quite noon. The cantina is still mostly empty.

That suits me just fine.

I take a seat at the bar and order a large glass of kumis. Yes, that would be an alcoholic beverage before midday. The girl tending the bar is someone I’ve not met previously here in Anchorhead, and although she doesn’t look old enough to be out of school yet, she favors me with the hard, appraising stare of a veteran of a hundred drunken brawls. Is he going to make trouble for me? I can practically hear her thoughts.

Surely the signs are not terribly promising. I have chosen a shadowed corner not directly visible from the entrance of the cantina, and I have declined to lower the hood of my robe. At best, I look like a harmless vagrant; at worst, I could be a volatile drunkard. As one might imagine, there are plenty of both on Tatooine.

In the end, the girl simply serves my kumis without comment and turns her back to me two-thirds of the way so that she keep a potential troublemaker under supervision while watching the HoloNet projector. The current program appears to be a rebroadcast from Naboo, a special featurette commemorating the many achievements of the late Senator, and former Queen, Padmé Amidala, who broke a Trade Federation blockade of her homeworld at the tender age of thirteen and fought heroically against Separatist tyranny for the remainder of her tragically foreshortened life. The girl’s expression turns wistful and sad as the presenter explains how Amidala was betrayed to her death on the very same day the war was ended. She will remain an inspiration to countless beings throughout the galaxy, the featurette avers, and the revered Emperor, himself a Naboo native and close confidant of the Senator, has vowed that her assassin, still at large, will not escape justice—

I don’t want to hear this. I focus my attention on my drink instead. Kumis is bantha milk that has been fermented, its sugars converted into lactic acid, ethanol, and carbon dioxide. It is bubbly and very sour, and at this point so late in what Beru termed “the dry season,” its microbial cultures have been busy long enough to make the cloudy, blue-tinged beverage unexpectedly—but nonetheless pleasantly—strong.

I order a second. And a third.

I’m just starting to feel pleasantly woozy when the word “Alderaan” breaks through my alcohol-induced fugue. Alderaan means Bail and Breha Organa. Alderaan means _Leia._ It seems the special featurette on Padmé has concluded, and now the HoloNet projector is playing a galactic news bulletin.

“—Senator Bail Organa reacted with profound dismay to the ISB’s findings,” the news presenter reports. Then the feed switches to a recording of Bail, presumably making an official public announcement. “Senator Fang Zar was a friend and colleague; I am horrified by this irrefutable evidence of his sedition against the Empire and accept his summary execution at Aldera Palace as a just decision. On my home planet of Alderaan, we understand the difference between respectful difference of opinion and unlawful protest.”

Oh, stars, what’s been happening to the galaxy?! Senator Fang Zar was one of Palpatine’s most outspoken critics, not to mention a critic of executive overreach in general. _Of course_ , as a political opponent, he would be targeted for elimination—but for it to occur so soon, so brazenly?! And _why_ was he executed on Alderaan and not Coruscant?! Keep your well head down, Bail, I pray. For your sake. For Leia’s. Please.

The HoloNet bulletin cuts back to the presenter. “Zar’s execution has sparked widespread unrest in the Sern sector, with violent demonstrations erupting in all major cities on Sern Prime. The Emperor was left with no choice but to impose martial law. Grand Vizier Mas Amedda made the following statement—” The feed switches to an image of the Chagrian speaking at the Senate rotunda. “The Empire is unified! We fought Separatists in the Clone Wars and emerged victorious! We will not—I repeat, not—tolerate these infantile attempts to destabilize legitimate government on Sern, which originate from a disaffected and unrepresentive minority,” he declares, his horns quivering with outrage.

“An Imperial Navy battalion has already been dispatched,” the presenter continues, as blandly as if she were reporting on the weather. “Sources close to the Emperor confirm that the battalion is being led by the enigmatic Lord Vader, credited with the decisive victory against the Wookiees on Kashyyyk.” Again, the same blurry footage I watched yesterday of Wookiees being ruthlessly slaughtered by a cloaked, black figure wielding a crimson lightsaber is shown. This time, seeing it just makes me feel numb.

He’s been on Kashyyyk, not Tatooine. He’s going to Sern, not Tatooine. I repeat this to myself over and over and over. We are safe for now, and my dreams are…only dreams.

Yet I cannot stop remembering him as he was on the Temple surveillance holos, on bended knee before Sidious, head lowered humbly in obeisance, addressing that monster as “Master”…

He used to call _me_ “Master.” Mostly when he wanted to challenge my authority. I remember his bright eyes, his smile, his laughter…

The news doesn’t stop, though, however much I wish it would. “Over 300,000 Wookiees thus far have been charged and found guilty of treason under Imperial law. Most are reportedly being held in prison labor camps on the former Separatist world of Geonosis—”

The Empire is using criminality as an excuse to enslave its own people, and it’s happening with downright unseemly speed. To what end? A mystery. But I was a General of the Grand Army of the Republic, and while that role lies behind me, some of the hard-earned wisdom remains. For this reason, I perceive one thing with absolute certainty: This will lead to civil war.

Oh, how the Jedi Order has failed.

Finally, I cannot bear to listen any longer. Nevertheless, I continue to sit at the bar until the cantina has filled with the hustle and bustle of the afternoon crowd. I am an oasis of silence and solitude. My glass has long since been emptied, the inner surface crusted with the flaky residue of dried kumis.

“Would you like another?” the bar girl asks me pointedly.

“Ah, no. That will be all, thank you.” I settle my bill.

Time to head back. I should make it home before night falls. Maybe tonight my dreams will be less…disturbing.

***.

The sunsets truly are beautiful here. A multi-hued wash of orange, crimson, purple, and gold illuminates the salt flats surrounding the Lars moisture farm. With my macrobinoculars, I can detect a thin wisp of smoke rising from an underground chimney. Beru must be cooking the evening meal.

Normally, I would proceed to do the same, but my liquid meal in town has proven sufficiently satiating.

Besides, everything that I have learned today has given me plenty to chew on. Imperial efforts to track and, I would presume, control peoples on the margins of the galaxy are increasing, while dissent against the new regime is being violently quashed in the Core. It’s all too easy to connect the dots. Civil war is coming—a state of perpetual war would be to Palpatine’s political benefit, no doubt—and this time, it will not be fought by clones. No, someday very soon it will be conscripts from impoverished Outer Rim worlds like Tatooine who will be the Empire’s cannon fodder.

I’m glad Luke is still a baby.

The new Empire versus the remnants of the old Republic—for now, this cannot be my fight. My duty is to stay out of the way and face the future only when it arrives. Otherwise, I might unwittingly make everything worse…as I, as _we_ , have done already.

My front door bursts open, and Darth Vader launches himself at me as I emerge from the refresher, my beard freshly trimmed. I barely have time to try to swerve out of his path before he sweeps my legs out from under me and I hit the floor with crash. The tip of his lightsaber is poised to pierce my neck before I’ve even managed to get back on my feet.

I rise slowly, my hands held high.  We are face to face. “I am unarmed, as you can see,” I tell him, “and am at your mercy.”

The blade at my throat does not waver, and he is totally still, so motionless that not even the trailing edge of his long cloak rustles. He is also totally silent, save for the slow, mechanically-driven breaths of his respirator. The polished, ebony shine of his helmet is hypnotic. I feel like a womp rat in the thrall of an icy, reptilian predator.

“What do you want from me?” I ask.

He does not answer, but his blade flicks millimetrically closer to my throat, just enough for the skin to begin to redden and blister. I do not flinch. And I do not flinch either when the tip of the blade moves slowly down the center line of my abdomen, slicing open my tunics as it goes and marking my chest with an angry red burn. Two more lightning fast cuts at my shoulders and the tattered remnants of my tunics fall off around me. I am unclothed from the waist up.

“This isn’t about what I want,” he says. His first words, robotic and emotionless.

For a moment, I don’t understand what he means. And then he points his lightsaber at a bulge in my trousers I hadn’t realized was there. That crimson blade is so close that I can feel its heat. No one has ever threatened me in such an… _obscene_ fashion; I quiver with an alchemical mixture of arousal and adrenaline.

With a flick of his lightsaber, he cuts open the front of my trousers so deftly that not even the hair there is singed, and then I am on my back on the floor, my knees forced up against my chest, as the unendurable weight of a prosthetic-reinforced body falls on top of me. I scrabble at his chest, grunting, furiously trying to push him off, but I might as well be trying to unmake a mountain with my bare hands.

He tears me as he forces his way inside, and it hurts exactly like it did the first time. On this occasion, however, the pleasure comes much faster, as every powerful rocking motion, every long, remorseless thrust, enflames this shameful desire. Soon, I am not sure if I intend to push him away or pull him closer. My fists close tightly around the slippery armorweave fabric falling from his shoulders. My hips rise instinctively to meet him.

Giant gloved hands cup my face, cruelty masquerading as kindness. I can hear the whirling servomotors in those prosthetic fingers. If he wanted to, he could drive them right through my skull and end this. Tears blur my sight, and I blink, allowing them to fall. “Anakin, _why_ —” I whimper, more plea than question.

“Anakin Skywalker is dead. _You_ killed him, Obi-Wan.” His vocoder makes it sound almost tender.

The pleasure is intensifying, choking me. All I can see is my own contorted expression in the convex crimson lenses of that infernal, expressionless mask. I squeeze my eyes shut to blot out the vision, tossing my head from side to side; would that I could deny how he makes me feel—but he already knows. He begins to thrust harder and faster. This taking continues relentlessly for many minutes until, finally, he stiffens against me with an eerie, artificial bellow.

“No… It was you, Anakin, always you…” I cry softly beneath him. And come.

When I awaken the next morning, to the distant rumble of a Jawa sandcrawler on the move, my bedclothes are sticky with semen. But I don’t vomit. That’s an improvement.  

***

After that second nightmare the second night in a row, I discover that I’m extremely willing to reconsider my previously inflexible position on do-it-myself solar generators.

Unfortunately, when I do manage to intercept the Jawas crossing the Dune Sea—they turn out to be the same clan I saw hawking their wares in town yesterday—they sincerely regret to inform me that they are fresh out of household generators. Even that only slightly cracked solar panel was sold. But would I be interested in some power converters, forty percent less than the price charged by our nearest competitor?

As I am politely declining the Jawa’s offer, I notice something just inside the entrance to the sandcrawler that I have not seen since my long ago days as an initiate on a janitorial rotation in the Jedi Temple. “Is that a Cee-oh-too Supercritical?” I ask.

The diminutive Jawa chirps an affirmative.

“Does it work? And if so, is it for sale?” These are quite possibly the Jawa’s two favorite questions.

The bargaining that ensues is enthusiastic and, for my part, mostly pro forma. I do not want to be taken as a gullible mark, but I have no problem dipping into Bail’s funds and paying a generous enough amount of credits that the Jawas cheerfully agree to help me install the Cee-oh-too Supercritical into the rear of my empty eopie stable for free. The local herd of banthas watches the Jawas deliver the bulky appliance up to my homestead’s plateau with bemused, benevolent brown eyes. They seem to know that the Jawas will not harm them and feel welcome to linger—there is good grazing a short distance from the hustle and bustle, so why forfeit it?

If I’m honest, I couldn’t have wished for a better outcome—an industrial-strength dry cleaning machine of my very own! A veritable extravagance. The technology has been around for centuries; the machines are sturdy and reliable. This particular model comes with its own dual-source generator as well, using either a small solar array and/or a small interior furnace for power. (Yes indeed, I may have just found another personal use for bantha poodoo.) Of course, the furnace may also be used to supply the machine with the carbon dioxide it requires.

Carbon dioxide has an unusual chemical property: At relatively low temperature but high pressure, it fills available space like a gas while otherwise behaving like a liquid. In this “supercritical” state, carbon dioxide is an excellent solvent with which to clean ordinary fabrics, removing dirt and grime and, after normal temperature and pressure are restored, removing itself as, in its gaseous state, it dissipates into the atmosphere. No water whatsoever is required.

I do my first load of laundry immediately, and the Cee-oh-too Supercritical works like a charm. I’m smiling like an idiot, and I don’t care if I’m being utterly ridiculous. It’s _such_ a relief knowing that I won’t be struggling to keep my blankets sand- and semen-free! I may have to go the rest of my life without a sonic shower unit, but at least I’ll always have clean robes and bedclothes.

I pull a laundered pair of trousers from the machine and shake them out. Every wrinkle is a new reason to rejoice.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Kumis is fermented mare’s milk, a staple of Central Asia. The Tatooine bantha milk version in my story is blue and has a higher alcoholic content.
> 
> (2) The political context in this chapter (and others in Act One) is loosely based upon events on Alderaan and Kashyyyk in James Luceno’s _Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader_. This should not, by the way, be taken as an endorsement of that novel, which I don’t actually think is that good. It just so happens that these events fit nicely into my plot.
> 
> (3) The stuff about “supercritical” carbon dioxide is true. The dry cleaning machine that exploits it, on the other hand, is a total fabrication on my part.
> 
> (4) Obi-Wan is not an “unreliable narrator” per se, but his POV is definitely limited. There are some things he doesn’t know and some things he’s trying hard not to think about. To be honest, I’m not sure if I’m getting this aspect of the story right. For example, did you notice the indirect reference to a love triangle in this chapter?


	5. Act One, Scene V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On newborn bantha calves, milk puddings, and male nipples. (Yes, really.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In light of Grey’s comment about “the specifics of exactly what is happening here” on Chapter 4, I have added a quote from E.M. Forster’s _Howards End_ to the beginning of Chapter 1. Yes, it is _that_ famous passage, and I’m hoping it will make what I’m trying to accomplish in Act One a bit less obscure. If, however, you are unfamiliar with the quote and would like a fast explanation, read the first paragraph of [this book review](https://newrepublic.com/article/76235/the-prose-and-the-passion).

I’m oh so very glad I bought that dry cleaning machine. The Cee-oh-too Supercritical may have cost me more than the average moisture farmer makes in a month, and the Jawas probably thought I was weird to want it in the first place, but _stars_ is it worth it a hundred, a thousand, a hundred-thousand, times over.

Several weeks have passed, and I continue to dream of him every night.

It always starts the same way, with Darth Vader striding into my home and launching his attack. I am always unarmed, and no matter what I do to defend myself, my efforts are inevitably futile. I’ve tried feinting left, feinting right, turning tail outright and running. I’ve tried to get past him in order to escape into the desert. Once, I even tried to barricade myself in my underground storage larder.

He dragged me out by my hair. That was an especially traumatic night.

All my effort is for naught, in any case, because he always wins. Quickly. Decisively. The only question is how much damage he inflicts before achieving victory. I’ve endured everything from superficial bruises and burns to multiple limb amputations. From his point of view, I suppose I deserve all that and more. And then, of course, he pushes me against a wall or throws me to the floor…and rapes me. Sometimes it’s from behind; other times we’re face to face. Sometimes he talks; other times he is totally silent. But he always orgasms inside of me.

And I always…enjoy…the intimacy.

Immediately after it ends, I always awaken, covered in my own semen, shuddering from the intensity of what I’ve imagined and wishing I knew what to do to stop this from happening again.

I am by no means a young man anymore, yet my body is behaving like a rebellious teenager’s—and truth be told, I never had this many wet dreams during adolescence! At least I’ve gotten to the point where I can laugh to myself about it. Well, it’s either that or cower from myself in the far corner of my refresher, wracked with debilitating horror and disgust, and that is not an option in the present circumstances.

A full third of the year gone, and Master Qui-Gon’s spirit has yet to contact me. Either that or I cannot hear him. Not even if my life depended on it, it seems. I suppose that’s a relief of sorts—what would I say about how I’m feeling, given the present circumstances? And if I’m honest, I’m not sure what would be more humiliating: being asked about the dreams or having to account for why I have them.

So. Yeah, right. Thank goodness I’m able to do laundry regularly. At least my bed doesn’t _reek_ like a rebellious teenager’s.

***

Festive streamers in alternating colors of blue, white, and gold adorn the entrance to the Lars family dwelling. I watch them flutter and dance in the gentle breeze that is blowing in from the east this morning. What might the special occasion be? I wonder to myself idly.

A probable answer to my question becomes apparent as I scan the dunes with my macrobinoculars’ viewfinder and catch sight of the local bantha herd. Ah, there they are, arranged in what has become their customary circle. It has acquired three new—newborn—members sometime during the night. I’m delighted. If I include the four males which, for whatever reason, have not yet parted ways with the rest of the herd, there are now an even thirty individuals.

The newborn bantha calves are adorable, all rickety legs and plush blond fuzz. This coloration, I note, is a marked difference from the dark brown adults, but it blends in remarkably well with the old gold of the jagged rocks of the Jundland Wastes and the rolling sands of the Dune Sea. It must be camouflage, which means that the calves must need the protection from predators. Hmm…

Oh, wait! Look at that! Another of the females, the smallest and perhaps the youngest, is definitely in labor. She is panting heavily, and her back is arched and stiff with tension. Then, all at once, the calf tumbles out of her headfirst, in a burst of blood-tinged amniotic fluid. Instinctively, she begins to lick the calf, stimulating it to take its first independent breath, severing the umbilical cord, and cleaning it of the detritus of birth. It is alive! I chuckle as her big, rough tongue, wider than the calf’s own head, swipes at its snout and ears and swirls the fur on its back into silly, improbable patterns.

Eventually the thirty-first and newest member of the herd, still damp but reasonably clean, tries to stand. There are a few false starts and face plants into soft, forgiving sand, but it soon succeeds, using its mother’s broad snout for support. Less than a twenty minutes after coming into the world, the calf has taken its first independent, if wobbly, steps. The calf’s next accomplishment is locating its mother’s swollen udder behind one foreleg and enjoying its first meal.

Well, well, well. The wheel of the galaxy turns, and right here and now, in my modest little corner of it, the dry season is officially at an end.

***

I do not know what the protocol is for the celebration of this particular holiday. Is it a holiday? Is gift-giving appropriate? Certainly, another canister of milk powder would seem especially redundant.

On this occasion, therefore, I turn up at the Lars moisture farm empty-handed. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to matter. Owen is again absent, selling the latest water harvest at the wholesale market in Mos Eisley, and Beru is busy in the kitchen.

I offer my assistance—such as it is, given that, despite regular experimentation and practice, I’m still burning the bread at home whenever I try to bake it myself—and Beru assigns me to a large pot of sweet custard simmering on the stove. It has been made with fresh bantha milk. I’m to stir frequently, to ensure that the consistency is smooth and creamy and that it doesn’t overheat.

The smell filling the air is wonderful, and it becomes even more wonderful with the judicious addition of aromatic spices into the pot. While Luke naps nearby in his bassinet, Beru works comfortably at my side, husking and polishing a batch of dried wholegrain to be added to the custard to make a blue dessert pudding.

She’s a great cook. “You have to teach me your secret,” I suggest, practically pleading.

“There is no secret. All that’s required is sufficient attention and care,” she assures me. Then she pauses her grain polishing a moment to reflect. “It also helps if you have someone to enjoy the results,” she adds.

Needless to say, I’m skeptical, but I keep my doubts to myself.

“Okay, we’re ready,” Beru announces and throws the finished portion of wholegrain into the pot and extinguishes the stove’s gas flame. The grains immediately start plumping, and the mixture in the pot thickens. “Don’t stop stirring,” she reminds me.

Technically speaking, after the grains have cooked, the dessert pudding is supposed to be ladled into small single-portion serving bowls, where they are left to cool so that the pudding within congeals and the top become crusty and dry. After an hour, an additional, thick layer of sugar is added to the top of each bowl, to slow down further evaporation.

But after preparing twenty or so individual bowls, we decide that the pudding smells far too good to wait the necessary hours for it to cool, and sit down right there at the kitchen table to share the remainder between us. We laugh as we blow on the steaming confection and try not to burn our tongues. It is hot and gooey, creamy and sweet, and the wholegrain is delightfully chewy, with a subtle nutty flavor. I tell Beru that such a dish would not be out of place in the finest restaurants of the Core Worlds.

She is surprised by this. The blue pudding is just a simple home preparation that virtually everyone on Tatooine knows, suitable for any special occasion but especially popular, given that it tastes best when made with fresh bantha milk, to celebrate the end the dry season. It doesn’t even have a proper name.

“Maybe someone should give it a name,” I suggest.

“Why bother? Do you really believe fancy restaurants on faraway Coruscant would serve it if it had a name?” Beru asks.

I don’t have an answer to that.

Beru has no interest in “faraway Coruscant” or any other distant world. She believes that she already has more than enough, and so she does not concern herself with pointless yearning for that which she doesn’t have. Now, granted, her lack of acquisitiveness is not as principled or extreme as the Jedi philosophy of non-attachment—her family’s security is of uppermost importance in her mind. Nonetheless, I believe there is much to be learned from her modest example.

It is a shame, I muse, that Anakin never bothered to absorb this particular lesson the time he and Padmé were visiting here. But then again, Beru is the daughter of a moisture farmer and the wife of another, and she was never a slave. Although a disposition of rugged survival in the face of possible deprivation appears to be deeply ingrained in the cultural memory of settler Humans on Tatooine, for Beru, modest level of security was always a reasonable expectation.

For a slave, or a former slave, an above-average amount of personal striving might be expected. I recall Kit, out in the wilderness with his friend Wald, hunting for krayt dragon pearls because he’s fallen in love with a girl and wants to marry her.

“Have you heard from Kit and Wald?” I ask.

“Not at all.” Beru does not seem concerned. She takes our empty pudding bowls and places them in the sink before return to her seat at the table. “But presuming that they were right about Sarlacc Tooth Ridge, they’ll be back here in a couple of days,” she says with the same sort of easy conviction that she might have in assuring me that the suns will certainly rise tomorrow.

I’m about to ask her how she could possibly know that when Luke in his bassinet begins to cry. I go over to him, smoothing his wispy blond hair, reaching out with my hand to his forehead and the Force to his mind simultaneously to calm him. I’ve done this more times than I can remember.

Only this time, it doesn’t work.

My inner senses crash into his like a speeder at full throttle into a flowstone wall. Hardly four months old, and he’s already so strong! We knew this would be the case, of course, but knowing is one thing, and _feeling_ it for myself is entirely another. It’s just like… Well. He will need training in order to control this unfathomable potential—the sooner the better.

Beru joins my side at the bassinet. She looks down at Luke, who is now wailing at the top if his tiny lungs, and murmurs, “Perhaps he needs something else from you today.”

“What do you mean?” I’m baffled. What else can I give him, besides the calm of the Force?

She merely smiles enigmatically and gestures to me to return to my chair. I do as she bids. She is standing in front of me. “May I?” she asks, her hands hovering delicately over the collars of my tunics. I’m very confused, but I nod anyway, giving her my permission, and she loosens my tunics so that the right side of my chest is bared.

“Have you ever suckled an infant?” Beru asks.

“What?!” I bleat, shocked. “But I’m a man and— Men don’t—”

Beru lifts Luke, still crying, out of the bassinet and places him in my arms. “Men have nipples too. What do you think they’re for?” she asks reasonably.

It’s rather hard to concentrate when there’s a baby crying. Nevertheless, I’m about to mumble something suitably technical about Human genetics, sexual dimorphism, and natural selection half-remembered from Temple lectures when Beru swipes one finger along the inside of the pot used to cook the custard and paints a thin layer of the sweet confection over my right nipple. The flesh tightens and pebbles reflexively.

“Men don’t lactate.” I settle for that brilliant observation instead.

“No,” Beru agrees, “and neither do some women.” I wince inwardly. I’d forgotten yet again. “Babies need more than milk, Obi-Wan.”

“But I’m too…hairy,” I try.

“Mother banthas are hairy too,” Beru reminds me. “Let little Luke decide for himself.”

With gentle yet inexorable hands, she guides Luke’s open, crying mouth toward my nipple, and I watch in utter astonishment as he immediately stops crying and latches on. His lips are puckered, and I can feel his tongue moving against my nipple. He swallows rhythmically, and slowly, ever so slowly, his big blue eyes open. So clear, so trusting. Just like his father’s when he was a nine-year-old boy.

I am entranced. It is a strong, hard, hungry connection, almost painful but in a good way. He knows—and wants—me, _me_ , whoever I am, in a place beyond words or proper names; I can feel his simple pleasure, his animal contentment, in our closeness. I would never have believed it possible for me to give an infant comfort by offering my nipple. But here I am—amazing! Luke’s tiny hands dig into my chest hair, as if to pull me in closer, and I wince slightly, chuckling, as a few strands get yanked out from the roots. Okay, that’s _actually_ painful. And I don’t care. I’ve endured far worse.

Beru smiles again. She doesn’t need to say what she’s thinking, and neither do I. We both know. This is exactly what he needed. What I needed. This is… _right_.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Men giving babies their nipples to suckle is [accepted practice in at least one human society](http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=848843&page=).


	6. Act One, Scene VI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Confrontations aplenty. Obi-Wan ruminates.

I linger at the farm through the afternoon, cuddling little Luke close as he drifts off into a deep, peaceful slumber in my arms. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt quite so happy to be exactly where I am.

Owen returns home from Mos Eisley early in the evening. He is not terribly pleased to see me seated comfortably in his kitchen. His broad, rounded features become pinched and guarded. “Kenobi.” He says my name flatly, adding nothing further in greeting or welcome.

“I wish to speak to you about Luke,” I tell him, voice calm and even. I do not allow myself to be unbalanced by Owen’s lack of trust.

“Yeah, I’ve got some things I wanna say to you, too. Why don’t we take this outside?” Owen suggests, gesturing in the direction of the farmhouse’s open-air courtyard.

I nod readily in agreement. Owen’s not making a threat.

Beru, in the midst of bottle-feeding Luke, rises to join us, but a sharp, abortive motion from Owen stops her. Shrugging, she turns her attention back towards Luke, remaining behind in the kitchen while we move into the courtyard. Were it up to me, Beru would be an equal partner in such discussions, but the Humans of Tatooine are chauvinistic as a matter of course, and it is not my place to dictate terms in Owen’s own home. If Owen wants to talk to me “man to man,” I must abide by his wishes.

“I know it may seem premature to discuss such matters,” I begin, “but it’s become clear to me that Luke will need to begin his training in the use of the Force as soon as possible—”

“Did you hear about the uprising on Kashyyyk?” Owen asks, interrupting. His frown makes it abundantly obvious that he isn’t even really listening to what I have to say.

“Hmm? Oh yes. Horrid affair all around.” I make some obligatory sympathetic noises. There is no way to underplay the magnitude of that particular atrocity, but it’s only one of many, and Kashyyyk is far from Tatooine; what’s happening there has no direct bearing upon anything happening here. “Last I heard, over 300,000 Wookiees had been imprisoned for crimes against the Empire—”

“And do you know why?” Owen asks, cutting me off again.

“ ‘Why’…?” I echo hesitantly, my confusion evident. Palpatine is a despot who doesn’t need reasons for his tyrannical suppression of dissent…

“Yes, _why_!” Owen explodes. “Did that bit of news miraculously pass you by, or are you _trying_ to be stupid?!”

“I-I…” I’m at a loss. I cast my eyes up to the darkening sky, like I’m seeking inspiration, or perhaps intervention, from the heavens.

“The Wookiees were accused of harboring fugitive Jedi!” Owen hisses.

My blood runs cold. That bit of news had, indeed, passed me by. Master Yoda was on Kashyyyk when Order 66 came down, and the Wookiees helped him escape off-planet. There’s no reason to believe that any other surviving Jedi are—or were—in hiding on Kashyyyk, but I suppose anything is possible. It’s also possible, probable even, that the Master Yoda’s escape is the tiny grain of truth that was used to justify disproportionately violent retaliation against a proud and powerful species which undoubtedly rejects the imposition of Imperial rule.

“And Kashyyyk isn’t the only planet that could be accused of harboring fugitive Jedi, as you damn well know. Your presence here is putting us—and Luke—in serious danger. You’re too obvious; you stick out too much. You need to start making yourself much, much scarcer, Kenobi!” Owen’s declaration pulls me harshly back into the here and now. 

He’s right, of course, and the realization sickens me. How am I to reconcile the danger of my very presence with the duty I have been enjoined to discharge? I despise my impotence.

“Way I see it, Luke’s perfectly safe as long as he’s kept far from any Jedi nonsense—and that includes you!” Owen concludes.

I don’t like where this conversation is going. “I have a sworn duty,” I say stubbornly.

“Yeah, sure you do. Didn’t you have a ‘sworn duty’ to my stepbrother as well? And look how _that_ turned out!” Owen snaps.

I told Owen and Beru upon my arrival onplanet that Anakin Skywalker had died—and at the time, I believed it to be literally true. They don’t know about Darth Vader, and for their own protection, I’ve absolutely no intention of enlightening them. Even so, Owen’s words are like a vibroknife twisted into an open, festering wound.

“Anakin always made his own choices—” I begin. Oh, it hurts…

“Bantha poodoo! He’d still be alive if it weren’t for you Jedi!!” Owen shouts. He’s genuinely enraged, and he too nurses old wounds.

“ _Owen_. Please.” Beru emerges from the kitchen to join us in the courtyard. She must have heard him yelling.

Owen sighs and throws his arms up in disgust. “Tell Kenobi he isn’t welcome here anymore,” he says as he stomps away in the direction of the garage.

“I’m sorry, Beru,” I murmur. “Your husband is correct. My presence does endanger you.”

“That may be true,” she agrees. “But no one suspects anything as of yet. Here on Tatooine, you’re Ben Kenobi, just one more offworlder who doesn’t like talking about the past. We’re all misfits. Or we’re the children of misfits. You’ll find your place among us—you’ll see.”

“Be that as it may…”

“No more talking now. Owen will come around, and you should be heading on home. It’s not good to be out late on nights such as these,” Beru says.

I accept her judgment without further argument and defer any decisions about what is to be done about Luke’s training for another, and hopefully better, day.

***

While I go through the usual motions of eating my evening meal and washing up before bed, my thoughts wander far afield. I turn in for the night and find myself too troubled and anxious to fall sleep. Instead, I lie on my back, staring up at the blank, whitewashed adobe ceiling for hours on end. Even the dubious respite of my nightmare visitations eludes me.

Owen’s angry words repeat and repeat and repeat in the space between my ears like a broken holorecording.

_The Wookiees were accused of harboring fugitive Jedi!_

_Your presence here is putting us—and Luke—in serious danger._

_You need to start making yourself much, much scarcer, Kenobi!_

_He’d still be alive if it weren’t for you Jedi!!_

What hurts most of all is that, fundamentally, he is correct. I am here on Tatooine because there is no one else to protect and train Luke. That doesn’t mean I am the best being for this job.

I never was.

It was supposed to have been Qui-Gon Jinn who trained Anakin, not Obi-Wan Kenobi. I may have had the best of intentions, but what are good intentions worth when the future of the galaxy is at stake? I was a callow youth, barely better than a Padawan myself, when Anakin came to me, and I took him on because I’d promised my Master and there was no one else. If not for my insistence, the Council would have sent Anakin packing back into ignominious slavery.

Besides, Anakin wanted to become a Jedi so badly, said he’d dreamed of it for as long as he could remember. And more to the point—he wanted me to be his teacher. _Me_ , Obi-Wan Kenobi, in all of my particulars and not inconsiderable imperfections.

I wasn’t prepared for such want, had no defense against it. I had been raised in the Temple, a Jedi youngling treated with temperance, tolerance, and humor…but never passion. All of my basic needs had been automatically met; I’d never been starved, never learned how to _desire_ , never needed to. I had no capacity to resist being desired.

And oh, did Anakin possess a bottomless well of desire. They were a child’s desires at first, innocent and primal and utterly captivating. So much like little Luke, actually—a needy mouth latched onto my most tender flesh—and back then it too felt right. Very, very right. He craved me, and that craving in turn made him _mine_. He took up residence inside my heart, and I welcomed him there because he’d already welcomed me into his. Later, when his desires became those of a man, they were no less urgent, no less intense. We called each other “brother,” but we were closer than brothers. Closer, indeed, even than lovers.

No, he was never my lover. Did I want him to be? At the time, I was never conscious of any wanting. Yet we never know what we have until it is ripped painfully away. Some things can only be understood in the stark light of their absence. Now, as I lay here, all alone in the cool darkness of my desert abode, the heaviness of loss weighing down upon my chest, I can finally admit it: Yes, I wanted him. With a need just as sharp and primal as any he ever felt for me.

They are shameful, these desires, shameful in a way that Anakin’s—the boy’s or the man’s—never were. Because, in spite of his evil, the unspeakable atrocities he has committed against those he was sworn to protect—

The coldblooded murder of Jedi initiates in the Council Chambers, the mass enslavement of the Wookiees on Kashyyyk—

His pledge of allegiance to a Dark Lord of the Sith—

_I still want him. I still love him._

I should have allowed him to pass from my life. That is the Jedi way. Yet I can’t bear to give up on love. And oh, how I ache inside, hollow, yearning for him to once again fill this unbearable emptiness! What might I be pushed to do, what lengths might I be willing to go, if it means getting him back…? The prospect is terrifying. Where once Anakin Skywalker resided, there is a darkness that dwells in me.

I can’t go on like this. I _am_ putting the people I’m meant to protect in danger—and in more ways than they can possibly know. My place on this planet is too insecure; I need to stand out less or make myself scarcer. Possibly both. Something, somehow, must change, and it is a change I must figure out how to make myself.

Please forgive me, Luke. You deserve better.

***

The banthas are screaming.

At first I think I’m just imagining it, their cries of distress merely an externalized extension of my own restless apprehensions. But then the roars of the krayt dragons join the discordant chorus, and I know what I am hearing is real. I blink sticky tears from my eyes and sit upright. More roars and screams—quite close by, actually. It sounds like they are practically on my doorstep.

With no small amount of curiosity, I throw on some clothes, grab my pair of macrobinoculars, step into my boots, and head outside. The dome of the night sky is cloudless and awash in stars. Two moons, the smaller one half-full and the other a sickle-shaped crescent, are sufficient to light my way to my usual rocky perch. I sit down and switch the macrobinoculars to an infrared visual display.

I lift them to my face and point the lenses in the most likely direction. Ah yes, there they are, on the dunes less than a kilometer away. The local bantha herd is under attack by a trio of krayt dragons.

This is the first time I have ever seen a krayt dragon. They are magnificent creatures in their own right, twice as long from nose to tail as an adult bantha is tall, head adorned with a flat, fan-shaped, spiny crest. Their squat, splayed legs are muscular and powerful, and their drooling jaws are full of sharp, serrated teeth. They are fast, aggressive, and totally relentless, and they have excellent night vision—their eyes glow brightly with reflected moonlight. It’s no wonder the locals call these predatory lizards “dragons.”

The banthas are bunched tightly together for protection, the calves and yearlings at the very center of the tight circle. Banthas are completely blind at night, and this puts them at a great disadvantage. The adults face outwards, horns at the ready. I notice that the herd’s matriarch and four males are actively counterattacking, clumsily charging and attempting to gore any krayt dragon that comes near enough.

It soon becomes apparent that the adults are too big for the trio of krayt dragons to take down. Perhaps if they were truly hunting cooperatively, the situation would be different, but they are attacking as an uncoordinated gang. They must be after the newborn calves! Suddenly, the way in which the banthas time their breeding season to coincide with the birthing makes sense to me—mature males provide much-needed protection during the time of year the herd is most vulnerable.

Predator and prey have reached a stalemate. Both sides bleed from scores of superficial wounds, yet neither will back down. As long as the herd sticks together and holds its ground, the krayt dragons will not be able to penetrate the wall of adults. But the banthas are blind and terrified; untold millennia of finely-honed instincts are telling them to run. However, running would be a deadly mistake. The krayt dragons’ only hope of success is in spooking the herd into fleeing. Then, and only then, may it become possible to pick off one of the calves.

I continue my vigil, riveted by the drama unfolding before me, an ancient, primordial struggle of life and death played out again and again and again throughout the galaxy. There is no morality here, no light or dark, only the perfect balance of nature, the opposing, competitive needs of simple, non-sentient creatures. I am reminded of that which is greater than myself and that, ultimately, the whole is greater than the sum of each individual life.

All at once, the herd makes a break for freedom, and the krayt dragons follow in hot pursuit. They disappear together over the steep ridge of a dune, their cries receding into the distance. I suppose I may never know precisely how this drama ends. Oh well.

Sweet silence reigns over the Dune Sea.

I return to my bed and nestle down into the comforting weight of soft, clean blankets, but sleep does not come.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) In case you were wondering, Obi-Wan-as-amateur-naturalist is not merely my personal whim. Don't believe me? Pick up a copy of Marvel _Star Wars #20_.
> 
> (2) Yes, there is an important reference to the title of the story in this chapter. Too heavy-handed? Or too obscure?
> 
> (3) Act One is officially building to a climax! :-) Things are going to get better for our protagonist from here on…and there will even be some romance. (Really, really.)


	7. Act One, Scene VII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obi-Wan brings comfort to a dying bantha calf and his distraught mother, and the subsequent change in Obi-Wan’s point of view results in some surprisingly pleasant dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did promise romance, didn’t I? ;-)

I never did manage to fall asleep properly, but I was able to achieve a measure of calm in the darkness and the silence. So, while I don’t feel fully refreshed, at least I feel confident enough to face this new day.

As dawn approaches, I head back outside, macrobinoculars in hand, curious to learn whether or not the krayt dragons’ nocturnal hunt was successful. I survey the dunes and manage to locate the bantha herd relatively quickly. They are grazing off far in the distance, close to the horizon line. A head count tells me, however, that two of the herd’s members, a mother and her newborn calf, are missing.

What happened to them? I resume my visual search and am surprised to discover the mother quite nearby, standing on the leeward cliff side of my homestead’s plateau. It’s the small female I watched give birth only yesterday. From this vantage point, I can look directly down and study the shape of her broad, woolly back. She is practically under my feet! Her calf is nowhere in evidence, though; presumably it was captured and eaten. But why has she become separated from her herd? I wonder. Is she injured?

I climb down to get a better view, chancing a few Force-assisted leaps to ease the way. Once I am on level ground, I am able to see what I could not previously: The calf is laid out on the ground at its mother’s feet, and she is standing protectively over its body. Although the mother seems well, it’s immediately obvious that the calf has been grievously injured—its left rear leg has been twisted into an unnatural position, and its hindquarters have been torn open, savaged and bloody. It mews piteously. The mother paws the sand restlessly. She will not leave her offspring while it yet lives, but even to my untrained eye the situation is hopeless.

I reach out to the two banthas with my mind, my arm extending automatically to mirror the psychic gesture. My brow furrows with concentration. Their simple, animal senses are fogged with fear and, in the case of the calf, excruciating pain. Well, if nothing else, it is within my power to ease that pain.

I am able to calm the mother sufficiently to allow my approach and kneel beside the calf. Up close, the injuries appear even more dire; the calf has gone into shock and is weak from blood loss. It probably only has minutes to live. I stroke its head soothingly, the unruly mop of woolly blond curls soft and springy against the palm of my hand, and use a Force suggestion to banish the worst of the pain. Those curls remind me hauntingly for a split second of Anakin. The calf is male too, I realize, and he already has tiny nubs that are the beginnings of horns on his forehead.  

The end is nigh. The calf emits one last, low cry, exhales, and dies. His liquid eyes stare sightlessly into the morning sky, and I close them gently. I continue stroking his plush fur for several minutes, allowing a wash of unexpected grief to flow unobstructed through me. Is it my grief or the mother bantha’s? Or is it my grief _and_ the mother bantha’s? I’m not certain, but for the first time since Utapau, since Mustafar, I allow myself to feel it, to roll and wallow until I’m thoroughly submerged…

…until, finally, at long last, I surface.

And I am different.

The bantha mother is still standing over her calf. She tries nuzzling his limp body, which of course elicits no response. She looks at me with her big, depthless brown eyes, and the strength of her distress, her grief, swamps me anew. How creatures such as she think is beyond words, but somehow she understands the finality of her loss. She huffs and moans and shakes her head back and forth. She is hurting.

Suddenly, I become aware of an odd sound, like a spatter of raindrops hitting dry ground. It’s the mother bantha’s udders, I realize, swollen and leaking milk. This must why she is hurting now. She moans again. That animal drive—that desperate need—to feed and care and nurture her offspring is irresistible, threatening to overwhelm her own survival instincts. Without her calf to care for, she will not care for herself. This blameless being might die. Her gaze, locked onto mine, is pleading.

Maybe… Maybe I can…

Yes.

I reach for her mind once more. This time, though, instead of trying to experience her feelings myself, I try to communicate mine to her. Not words or concepts _per se_ , such things are beyond the mind of a mother bantha, but images, sensations. I show her my memory of motherless little Luke in my arms, his mouth on me, seeking the unlikely comfort of my hairy breast, and my sorrow that I cannot be as a mother should be to him. I have no milk to give this baby, I convey to her, and you have no baby to take your milk. We are hurting together. Would you help me?

There are the suns and the dunes and the tender new shoots of sweet sandgrass. There is self, and there are mother and mate and offspring and herd.

A long pause, a contemplative stillness. Then, subtly, she shifts her front leg forward to expose her udder.

***

Two large containers of milk sit on the counter of my kitchen alcove. It is too late in the day to bring them over to the Lars farm. I apply airtight seals to both containers and shelve them in my underground storage larder.

I spent much of the morning scouting the terrain around the fallen bantha calf. The proximity of the attack to my homestead suggests that, during this time of the year, at least, I can expect hungry krayt dragons visiting regularly and, given that potentially dangerous prospect, decided it might be wise to educate myself as a precautionary measure. Fortunately, their trackways were distinctive and easy to spot, and I was dismayed to discover how thoroughly encircled I am. Although they do not seem to be venturing up onto the plateau where I reside—too steep for banthas to climb so not a good place to hunt their favored prey, presumably—pretty much everywhere else appeared to be fair game.

No wonder Beru told me it wasn’t good to be out at night.

After a fair amount of deliberation, I ended up moving the bantha calf’s corpse perhaps half a kilometer into the high, rocky terrain of the Jundland Wastes. This takes us a fair distance from the bantha herd’s territory. I have good reason to believe that the krayt dragons hole up during the daylight hours in the caves that dot the Wastes. So, when the krayt dragons reemerge tonight, hopefully they will locate the corpse and scavenge it. Reptiles don’t need to eat as often as warm-blooded creatures—this should be enough to satiate them for a few days.

Newborn bantha calves are monstrously heavy. I had to carry him thrown over my shoulders while hiking uphill, and _stars_ was that was sweaty, grimy, downright bloody work.

By the time I’ve returned home, washed up, and eaten my first meal of the day, it is mid-afternoon, and I am beyond exhaustion _._ My sleepless night last night, it seems, has caught up to me, and I fall bonelessly into my bed with a relieved groan while it is still hot and bright outside.

My dreams will undoubtedly be dark, but for once, I don’t care. I will welcome oblivion.

***

Darth Vader strides through my front door. Again.

I am standing in the middle of the main living area, a ceramic pitcher full of newly harvested vaporator water in one hand. Those crimson lenses of his mask are fixated on me. We are frozen together in the moment, a perfect tableau. Slowly, deliberately, without breaking his presumed gaze, I lower the pitcher to a nearby table.

Then I do something that, in all of these terrible days and weeks of endlessly repeated violent, and violating, encounters, I have never done before. Instead of feinting or fleeing or trying to access my lightsaber at the bottom of the clothes chest in the bedroom—

I charge. Directly at him. As fast as I can, my arms outstretched.

I’m so swift that he doesn’t have time to react before my hands are on the sides of his head, fingers depressing hidden buttons, flicking hidden latches. His helmet and his mask tumble free, and underneath it’s my Anakin’s beautiful, unblemished face, topped by those same unruly, ridiculous curls, and I am kissing him. His mouth tastes like cream, fruit, and honey. I wrap my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist, and his giant, leather-gloved hands cup and lift my buttocks, holding me effortlessly against him as he kisses me back with ardor.

He carries me into the bedroom, lays me down, and climbs in on top of me. We are both naked now, chest to chest, flesh to flesh, and I twine my limbs lustfully around him. He is hot and wet when he enters me. There is no pain this time, only the ecstasy of unconditional submission. I’m sobbing with gratitude, and he moans his delight as he begins to thrust. We never stop kissing.

He takes me hard and fast, and it’s exactly what I want. Our rhythm is instinctive, perfect, and we move together, stroking and kissing, stroking and kissing, stroking and kissing. As, inevitably, his pace accelerates even more, my hips rise up off the bed entirely at the feel of him, thick and long. Yes, oh yes, _yes_ —we belong together.

And then he is driving both himself and me to orgasm, a brilliant explosion behind my eyelids like a sun going nova that melts, fuses, and finally completes us. He jerks erratically and fills me while my semen flows out onto our bellies and I buck and writhe underneath him, my back arching and limbs stiff as I wail rapture into his mouth.

If only we could be forever just this way.

Naturally I now expect to jolt awake, alone under sticky sheets, as I always do, but when the fire inevitably recedes there is only Anakin frozen above me, panting warm, moist breath into my face, damp curls tickling my forehead. Dilated pupils surrounded by a ring of electric blue look down on me with undisguised passion. His heaviness is comforting; I feel so wonderfully safe beneath him. He is still rocking within me slowly, pleasurable and sweet.

“Stay,” I plead. I clasp him tightly, my arms around his shoulders, my inner muscles flexing and clenching to prevent him from pulling out and leaving me. I want this feeling to last.

“Yes,” he says simply. And, shuddering with the aftershocks of our intense coupling as he gathers me in closer, he does.

***

Later, we make love again. This time, he offers himself to me, tugging me forward, legs spread open in invitation. I have never known such intimacy with another living being, and the touch of the silky skin of his inner thigh against my scrotum when I first plunge in deep brings tears to my eyes. Falling into him is like flying, soaring, weightless and endless. He has the incredible stamina of youth, of course; I lose track of the number of times he comes, and much too soon, in spite of my best efforts to keep going, I’m about ready to tumble into ecstasy along with him.

“Say it,” I command, gritting my teeth, mere seconds from losing control.

“Wha—?” He is practically incoherent.

“That. You’re. Mine,” I say, punctuating each word with a sharp jab to his prostate gland.

“I-I’m yours, Obi-Wan, yours a-always!” he whimpers.

It’s enough. I come.

***

By the time I revive and become aware of my surroundings, Anakin is already curled up, snoring softly, and sleeping the sleep of the supremely, and sexually, gratified. For a moment, and perhaps oddly, given what we have just done in abundance, I am reminded poignantly of the innocent boy he once was, for it was only during his preadolescent years that he was ever able to slumber this peacefully.

I sit up, the better to look down upon him. His body is unblemished, perfect, and his limbs are all intact; there is no evidence of violence or war. Seeing him like this… I can imagine—I can pretend—that I never failed him. Would that this were true.

It’s nearly morning, and our miracle night is approaching an end. I lean in to nuzzle his cheek. The intoxicating, spicy smell of our sex hangs in the air. My facial hair must be tickling him; his nose crinkles, and he begins to wake.

“Mmm…?” he grumbles a wordless question. He never did like getting up before sunrise.

“Shhh,” I murmur as I maneuver myself regretfully out of bed. “It’s nothing. Go back to sleep.”

He is pleased. He heaves a happy sigh, turns over onto his stomach, and snuggles more soundly into the lingering warmth of the bedclothes. When it came to matters such as these, he always did give me unquestioned obedience.

Quietly, careful not to disturb him further, I open my clothes chest and select a clean set of tunics and trousers from the neat pile within. It truly is amazing, I think as I dress. I’d tried so hard and in so many ways to gain access to the lightsabers beneath the false bottom of this very chest, yet in the end, weapons were never what I’d needed at all. What I’d actually needed was a change in my point of view.

Our lightsabers I leave where they are—to lie together in peace.

I stretch. I’m a bit sore, I realize, smirking. I smooth out and straighten my clothes. Well, I _am_ getting old. But it’s nearly sunrise, and tired muscles notwithstanding, I have chores to do. Relief from this solitude in exile does not mean I’m excused from other daily responsibilities.

Nevertheless, I tell myself as I step out of the bedroom and head toward the refresher, knowing I have company is a nice change of pace.

“Indeed it is, Obi-Wan.”

I halt, shocked beyond words to hear _that_ rough, benevolent voice answering my thoughts as if I’d spoken them aloud. I had believed I would never hear him again. Yet there he is, plain as day and exactly as I remember, standing in my kitchen alcove like he’s about to help himself to breakfast…or maybe to the pitcher of vaporator water I’d left on the table.

“Master Qui-Gon!” I gasp.

 

TO BE CONTINUED


	8. Act One, Scene VIII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More unexpected visitors and a new way forward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: I changed the last line of the previous chapter a few hours after first posting it. Nothing major, but for continuity’s sake I thought I’d mention it.

He looks exactly as I remember: the casual, loose-fitting Jedi uniform; the elegantly groomed hair and beard, light brown shot through with strands of silver; and the serene, compassionate expression. It makes my heart ache and swell in my chest. Oh, how I have missed him!

Thin lips crooked upwards into a joyful smile, Qui-Gon Jinn steps forward and places his hand on my shoulder. He is so big and tall, but his size relative to mine is consoling, never threatening, and the golden, effervescent warmth of his presence in the Force surrounds me. For a time we simply stand together, savoring this moment of long-awaited reunion. He does not seem inclined to speak further.

But as has always been my wont, I eventually feel compelled to fill the silence. “Would you like something to eat, Master? Or something to drink?” I ask politely. I may be a bit out of my depth, but this is my home, and I’ve no excuse not to be a good host!

“No, Obi-Wan. Such things are not necessary here.” The corners of his eyes crinkle with gentle amusement.

“You mean…” I hesitate and reflect before continuing. “You mean this isn’t real?”

“What is real?” Qui-Gon asks rhetorically.

I shake my head, confused, unsure of how to respond. It should not be possible for a man who has been dead for fourteen years to be here and talking to me now. However, I have experienced many things in my life once commonly thought impossible—it never pays to be close-minded. I tug reflexively on the hair on my chin as I seat myself on the low bench in the main living area.

“You have taken the first step. I am very proud of you,” he says and sits down next to me.

“The first step?” I echo. I don’t even pretend to understand.

“Of your training,” Qui-Gon clarifies. “The first step to retaining one’s selfhood upon achieving oneness with the Force is to fully embrace that which already exists within you.”

“So…” Does he mean…? My gaze slides surreptitiously in the direction of the bedroom, but I cannot see whether or not Anakin is still asleep in there.

“He dwells in you. For now, that is all that matters.”

“Then…” I feel myself flushing crimson; Qui-Gon obviously knows _exactly_ what has transpired between myself and Anakin. Carnal fantasies involving a boy I practically raised into manhood…raised at Qui-Gon’s own dying behest. What I’ve done “counts,” I suppose, which means I’ve broken my vows and I’m not a virgin anymore. So much for this particular Jedi’s honorable, lifelong commitment to celibacy. Stars, this is worse than my most humiliating moments as Qui-Gon’s apprentice—!

“That is all that matters,” he repeats firmly. The subject of my sexual activity is closed for discussion, and I am not to be ashamed.

I gulp and nod, unable to look at him, hands twisting nervously in my lap.

Qui-Gon sighs, sensing my leftover resistance. “Tell me, Obi-Wan,” he says, assuming his old, teacherly tone, “is it in the nature of the krayt dragon to be light or dark?”

I practically snort; this is the sort of question posed to younglings. “Neither, my Master. An ignorant being would assume that krayt dragons are dark because they are predators, killing in order to survive, but this is a misconception,” I rehearse with confidence. “It is in their basic, animal natures to be both light _and_ dark; the Force, therefore, is perfectly balanced within them.”

“And what about Human beings?”

The answer to this question, too, I could recite in my sleep. “Sentient beings such as Humans are obliged to _choose_ the path they walk—”

“I asked about Human _nature_ , not free will,” he interrupts.

“B-but…” I feel knocked off-balance. Non-sentients are governed by their natures and are balanced in the Force, while sentients are sentient _because_ they possess the ability to choose between light and darkness. For the Jedi, this is practically an article of faith.

“What you have been taught to believe is a false distinction,” Qui-Gon says. He seems to be answering my unspoken thoughts again. “It is Human nature to be balanced, but the paths we walk are not. The first step to walking the true path is to accept the fullness of one’s nature.” His large, heavy hand returns to my shoulder. “The darkness within us does not necessarily lead to the dark side, especially when it is confronted with sincerity. This has been difficult for you, I know, and I am sorry for it.”

I recall these days and weeks of violent dreams with a shiver. Even if they were only some sort of test, some sort of self-imposed, masochistic vision of my darkest desires made manifest…“difficult” would be the understatement of the galaxy. It’s not the most auspicious start to a training regime. Suddenly, I’m feeling rather anxious about what’s to come. My shoulders hunch as my body curls in on itself defensively.

“Oh, Obi-Wan,” Qui-Gon murmurs, his fingers squeezing in a gesture meant to comfort. “Do not be discouraged. I was unable to appear before you because you had become too unbalanced by your grief and feelings of guilt. Now that this has changed, I look forward to continuing your training. I have every confidence that you will ultimately succeed—I have foreseen it.”

“Hmm. Perhaps it would be wiser not to burden me with your expectations, Master.” I laugh nervously. It’s not easy to learn that the reason I could not reach Qui-Gon all these months was because I hadn’t achieved the requisite insight. I just never seem to be able to stop falling short in front of my old Master. “Besides, you know what happened…” I hesitate, “…w-with…with Anakin…”

“The Chosen One yet lives, Obi-Wan,” he reminds me. Right, as if I need any reminding!

“But the prophecy— I failed—” The blood of old wounds flows freely.

“Nonsense,” he scoffs. He has no patience for my self-pity. But then his voice grows tender, and he adds, “You did indeed become a greater Jedi Master than I ever was—I was right about that.”

“That depends entirely upon what you mean by ‘greater’…” I hedge. Although I am flattered by the praise, I am not willing to concede the larger point.

“True. I _was_ always much taller than you.” A pregnant pause, and Qui-Gon is roaring with laughter. His unselfconscious mirth makes my spirits soar, and soon enough I find that I’m laughing along with him. It’s cathartic—any residual tension between us drains away.

“You are not alone in this struggle, Obi-Wan, please remember that,” he says once he has the breath to speak seriously again. “I am with you as the Force is with you.”

“Thank you, Master,” I reply.

He accepts my expression of gratitude without comment. We are lost in comfort.

“Well, well,” he continues finally on a different tack, “maybe you should go make breakfast after all. It seems you have company today!” He inclines his head in the direction of the front door.

I follow his gaze. I can hear the growling rumble of a landspeeder engine shifting into a neutral gear outside.

“Ben, are you home?” a faint voice is calling.

“Sounds like you’re right,” I say, turning back to Qui-Gon.

But he is gone. I blink and stand up, looking all around me, peering into every corner. Nope, still gone, not a trace left behind. I duck my head into the bedroom. My bed is neatly-made—and empty.

If I was dreaming before, when did I wake up—?

“Ben?” the voice calls again, louder, startling me back into the present. Someone is knocking.

***

I stoke the fire in the oven while Kit and Wald regale me with their exploits up on Sarlacc Tooth Ridge.

They are overjoyed and eager to celebrate their success: They have procured not one but _two_ krayt dragon pearls on their expedition, enough to pay not just for the dowry Kit will need to get married to the girl of his dreams but also for Wald to buy out Watto’s remaining stake in the Mos Espa salvage shop. They are well on their way to building reputable lives for themselves, and their futures are bright. I rejoice in their happiness and try to imagine how Anakin will react to such fabulous news of old friends when I tell him.

Krayt dragons, I learn, starve for much of the year, subsisting meagerly on carrion and the occasional womp rat. They retreat into the cooler environs of the highlands at the end of the dry season in order to conserve energy, but there are, invariably, casualties. And so, they tend to gather together in large groupings, each individual ready and waiting for its neighbor to die—krayt dragons are not above cannibalism.

The locations of these krayt dragon “nests” are the subject of much rumor and speculation, and visiting them during the dry season is, quite obviously, exceedingly dangerous for the unwary or unprepared. For the brave and/or foolhardy, however, they represent a singular opportunity,  for in such places it may be possible to scavenge for krayt dragon pearls.

Sarlacc Tooth Ridge, it seems, lives up to its reputation as one of those places.

“—wouldn’t believe it, Ben,” Kit is saying. “There were sixteen krayt dragons—sixteen, isn’t that right, Wald?—all practically piled up on top of each other in this one shallow basin! They didn’t move at all, even in the heat of midday; they almost looked like statues. We had them staked out from a ledge higher up on the ridge. They couldn’t get to us, but we could see them. It was perfect.”

“Problem was,” Wald interjects, “was that even if one did decide to die, there’s no way we would’ve been able to get to it before the other krayt dragons did. One of ’em did go about two weeks into our stakeout, and eeeeeww!” Wald puckers his mouth and shivers.

“Yep, blood and guts in all four directions,” Kit supplies helpfully. “If it did have a pearl, one of the other krayt dragons probably ate it!”

“Ben, you know you’re supposed to soak those in water first, right?” Wald asks.

“Huh? Oh really, is that so? I’m sorry. No, I did not,” I say, surprised. They’d given me several of their extra ration packets, but damned if I knew exactly what to do with the colorful medley of sundried vegetables they contain. Now, I place the contents of the packets into a dish and add enough water to completely cover them over with liquid.

“Yeah, that’s right.” Wald says encouragingly, peering over my shoulder.

“Anyways,” Kit continues, eager to resume the tale of their daring exploits, “we knew that the krayt dragons would abandon the nest once the dry season ended, so it was only a matter of time before we’d have a night to ourselves for pearl-hunting. We finally got our chance two nights ago and—behold! Aren’t they gorgeous?” He digs the two pearls out of a vest pocket and holds them out to me on the palm of his hand.

“Lovely,” I agree, glancing backwards distractedly from my position in the kitchen alcove. I’m no krayt dragon pearl expert, but they seem like nice enough specimens. Vaguely, I wonder if the three krayt dragons I saw attacking the local bantha herd were some of the same ones that Kit and Wald were monitoring on Sarlacc Tooth Ridge. It seems likely, give the timing, but it doesn’t really matter, one way or the other. Besides, I think the bread might be done.

The bread is indeed done, and what emerges from the oven is the most beautifully baked, fragrant flatbread I have ever produced. It smells so good, in fact, that we hardly give it time to cool before we are digging hungrily in.

On Tatooine, it is traditional to eat with one’s hands, and so we sit with the large, newly baked flatbread in the middle of the table between us, tearing off pieces of the bread and using them to scoop up portions of rehydrated vegetable. It genuinely tastes nice, I’m shocked to realize. The bread is slightly crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside, and pairs beautifully with the salty, sharply sour chewiness of the vegetables. If only I had some Nubian allspice for additional favor…

Maybe there is hope for my cooking skills yet.

“This is wild milk. Where did you get it?” Kit asks, jolting me abruptly out of my fond memories of banquets past. I’d opened one of the containers of the mother bantha’s milk in case they wanted to put some into their cups of instant caf.

“Hmm, well…” I hesitate. Is it really that different from commercially produced milk? Perhaps it’s not something I should be offering to polite company. “There’s a herd of banthas in the area, and—”

“Do you have more? You could sell this for good credits in Mos Espa,” Wald interrupts.

“Yeah, totally. Dairy farmers feed their stock on imported grain; the milk doesn’t taste the same. They’re cutting it with chalkwater half the time, anyway,” Kit adds before I can formulate a suitable reply.

“How troubling,” I murmur. Troubling indeed. If we hadn’t happened to arrive at the start of Tatooine’s dry season, would Beru have been feeding Luke this adulterated bantha milk?

I tell Kit and Wald an abbreviated version of the story of the mother bantha and her maimed newborn calf, leaving out my use of the Force and stating, simply, that she had been desperate enough to be milked to allow me to do it. They seem satisfied by this explanation and remind me that wild milk is always in demand. I listen to their suggestions in this regard seriously; I tell them that it might well prove to be a solution to my thorny financial problems! We enjoy the coincidence of all three of us finding good fortune at the turn of the seasons and in the balance between predator and prey.

It almost makes one believe that there actually _is_ a mysterious, all-encompassing Force connecting all life and binding the universe together, I remark lightly. They assume my piety is feigned.

Soon enough, Kit and Wald are eager to be on their way. They thank me for the meal and return to the landspeeder they’d left parked outside my homestead compound. I join them outside to bid them a safe journey. Kit waves goodbye as Wald drives off in the direction of the Lars moisture farm, the empty hitch-tank they still need to return to Beru and Owen bouncing along behind.

After they disappear over the horizon, I notice that the small mother bantha is standing near the place I discovered her yesterday. Today, however, she is surrounded by her herd, and the matriarch stands beside her, big mouth and blunt teeth carefully grooming the younger one’s woolly fur.  

She is looking up at me expectantly. I suppose that means I should go down into the dunes to milk her.

 

END ACT ONE; TO BE CONTINUED

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) The food culture on display here is loosely based upon North African/Middle Eastern cuisine. There’s a more in-depth, descriptive explanation in [Chapter 5](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7731400/chapters/18958430) of “That Sleep of Death, What Dreams May Come.”
> 
> (2) If you are perceptive, you may notice certain subtly troubling aspects with regards to Obi-Wan’s otherwise positive state of mind in this chapter. They’re entirely intentional—and they are what will form the basis of things to come!
> 
> (3) Act One is finished—hooray!! X-D And three cheers for narrative and psychological complexity while I’m at it. This has definitely been the most difficult, as in spiritually difficult, fanfiction writing I have ever attempted. So, time to take stock: What do you think thus far? Is the substance and style of the story working for you?


	9. Act Two, Scene I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Change comes slowly to Tatooine, but it does come—and even after seven years in the desert, there are some surprises left for Obi-Wan to discover.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: I’ve decided to kick this story’s rating up to “Explicit.” (Yes, this chapter has a sex scene, and I’m guessing people are more likely to take that as encouragement than as warning!)

**We shall know what the darkness discovers, / If the grave-pit be shallow or deep; / And our fathers of old, and our lovers, / We shall know if they sleep not or sleep.**

**– Algernon Charles Swinburne, “Dolores”**

 

It’s been seven years.

Seven years of sunlight and sand have taken the man I once was and scrubbed, dried, and scoured him of excess. Now, when I look in the mirror, I can see the passage of time inscribed in the lines on my face and the gray in my hair. I feel it rather more often than I’d prefer in the occasional aches in my bones. I have to reassure myself that less is more.

I sit cross-legged on the leeward side of a dune some distance below my humble homestead’s plateau. The shadows are long this late in the day, and the ground beneath me is pleasantly warm, but not scorching, to the touch. I dig the fingers of both hands deep into the loose sand.

Jedi Master Luminara Unduli had such exquisite control of the Force that she could make the sand dance around her. It required that she know completely each individual grain of sand, one amongst countless others, in its uniqueness…and then to know the next, and the next, and the hundredth, the thousandth, the ten-thousandth. Focus and patience, unwavering.

What are we, but grains of sand in the desert?

The man who was Obi-Wan Kenobi never had the requisite control to make sand dance. But the man I am meditates, and he learns.

I lift two generous fistfuls of sand into the air. The mound of grains in my right palm begins to rise in a counterclockwise spiral. The grains in my left rise and spiral in the opposite direction. My brow furrows as I concentrate. My eyes are closed, but I do not need eyes to see the two spirals join and merge, a double helix twisting and spinning all around me.

At one with the Force, I sit in the center of a whirling sandstorm.

I am a single grain of sand in a desert, and the desert is me. I am a single speck of life in a vast universe, and the universe is me. All is one, and one is all. Unity. My thoughts reach out—

_< You shall know what the darkness discovers. You shall see the truth of what dwells in you.>_

Master Qui-Gon’s voice.

Alas, I cannot maintain this dance for longer than five beats of my heart. The sand falls with a gentle patter like dry rain. The sound reminds me that I cannot remember the last time I saw rain.

Dunes rise and fall in the wind like waves on a slow-motion ocean, yet the desert—the desert, ever-changing—is timeless.

***

He joins me in bed sometime after nightfall, slipping gracefully and without comment beneath the blankets. The movement is sufficient to rouse me, though, and I turn onto my side in order to make more room for him. We are both naked, and his long body is warm and solid against the bare flesh of my back; he throws an arm around my stomach and a leg around my hips to pull me closer.

“Where were you?” I murmur, voice still thick and clotted with sleep, as I snuggle deeper into his embrace.

“You don’t want to know,” he replies, nuzzling behind my ear. I can feel his arousal prodding the inside of my thigh insistently. My own is rising in response.

“Hmm, you’re probably right,” I say with a sigh and roll over so that we are lying face to face.

It is too dark to see him, but I do not need to. With one hand, I tousle shaggy curls and trace nose and cheekbone and soft, full lips. With the other hand, I caress sensitive nipples and the smooth, strong planes of his abdomen before reaching down with confidence to claim his erection. He hisses with pleasure as I stroke and reaches for me in turn. I bat his hand away—I won’t last, otherwise—and he acquiesces, sliding his hand underneath my arm and cupping the jut of my shoulder blade instead.

My rhythm has been perfected through our long mutual association, and soon he is moaning, hips jerking spasmodically, and fluid, thick and profuse, spills onto my hand. Then we are kissing tenderly, the taste of his mouth slightly salty from the minute beads of sweat dripping down his face, and I am simultaneously transferring his semen to my own needy erection, the coating delightfully slick and warm.

“I love it when you do that—so hot!” Each one of his words is punctuated by a kiss and a provocative twist of his hips toward mine.

He knows what I want next, of course. Once I’m ready, he gets onto his hands and knees, and I take him without hesitation. Penetration is easy, and each thrust which follows is deep and slow and sweet. We undulate in unison, my strokes in and out maximizing his pleasure as the clenching and relaxing of his inner muscles maximizes mine.

I reach beneath him and grasp his erection once more. He never lost it, even after coming once, and I know I can push him to orgasm again, should I wish it. Would that I were able recover as quickly! We’d probably never leave the bedroom…ever. I use my thumb and forefinger to tease the moist, polished tip of him and am rewarded with a low cry. We are both panting now, straining. Our rhythm begins to intensify, and I feel my own climax building low in my belly, the tension winding like a coiled spring.

One last thrust and I’m coming, my head thrown back and spine arching. We are crushed tightly against each other. Our fluids mingle within him; the wet sounds of my completion are profoundly erotic.

“Oh, oh, oh…” he whimpers.

I tug hard on his erection, my own still buried in him, and he ejaculates hard into the sheets. He quivers, fluttering and contracting around me, and I groan happily as the last droplets of my semen are squeezed out.

Finally, with a jaw-cracking yawn, he drops face down on the bed with myself on top of him. He reaches back to dig his fingers into my buttocks, ensuring that our bodies remain joined even in relaxation. I acquiesce without comment and cradle him in my arms. The scent of our sex, musky and fragrant, enfolds us.

We fall asleep—together.

***

I rise shortly before dawn and, as has become my custom, head outside to enjoy the vibrant wash of colors that is Tatooine’s twin sunrise. It’s my favorite part of the day, when the air is still cool and the very desert itself seems to be holding its breath in anticipation. This is a harsh planet, it is true, but it has its splendors nonetheless.

I point my macrobinoculars in the direction of the Lars moisture farm. It’s a bit too early for the morning water harvest, so the farm is quiet still. A sandstorm two days ago buried the homestead under close to a meter of loose sand, but it appears that they have successfully managed to dig themselves out—nothing is amiss or out of place, and thankfully, I sense no imminent danger.

Satisfied, I turn my attention to the bantha herd that makes its home in this little corner of the Dune Sea. They are grazing far off in the distance this morning, and even with the aid of my macrobinoculars the massive quadrupeds appear little bigger than woolly brown specks. Anakin likes to refer to this herd as “my” banthas, but while they generously share their milk with me, they are no more “mine” than any of Tatooine’s free-living creatures. And in any case, the calves have been recently weaned, so there will be no more milk for approximately four months, after which time some of the herd’s females will give birth again.

Ah, look at that! A band of five Sand People, each member armed with gaderffii and blaster rifle, are hiding themselves downwind from the banthas. They are there, I know, not to do violence but rather to claim one of the yearling calves to replenish their own herd. This is the time of year for it, when the calves are no longer dependent upon their mothers yet are still small and biddable enough to train.

There weren’t any Sand People within fifty kilometers of my settler’s homestead when I first arrived. Over the past few years, however, the tribes have been expanding, and the bantha roundup has become an annual occurrence.

I watch, but I do not interfere. I am not like other settlers; I have no quarrel with the Sand People.

Anakin tells me, with a colonist’s casual contempt for the natives, that I ought to be protecting “my” herd from these roundups. To him, the Sand People are no better than vermin. Vermin, in fact, may be preferable. But they treat their banthas well—better, some would argue, than they do their own children—and besides, to do so would be to unnecessarily upset the balance which sanctifies all life in the universe.

How naïve I was in the beginning, bantha-watching like some amateur naturalist all by himself out in the wilderness! In reality, wild banthas were extinct on Tatooine long before the first Human colonist ever set foot here. Free-roaming herds, including the one with which I associate, are descended from domesticated stock…domesticated, that is, by the ancestors of the Sand People.

Theirs is a close-knit, symbiotic relationship. The Sand People depend upon the banthas for virtually everything—food, clothing, shelter, and transport. And banthas in captivity breed more quickly and more successfully, so much so that during bountiful years some adults are released into the desert to roam freely and fend for themselves. These then form the basis of the “wild”—feral, to use correct terminology—herds such as the one I have befriended.

Unfortunately, these have not been bountiful years, and the growing Imperial presence on Tatooine has resulted in an influx of new—and thirsty—settlers whose not inconsiderable water requirements have wreaked environmental havoc on traditional sandgrass grazing grounds. Too often, it seems to be an either-or choice between sandgrass fields or moisture farms. It’s no wonder, then, that the settlers and the Sand People are at odds. While I cannot condone violence between sentients, I understand all too well why it occurs.

And so. On this occasion, they strive to lay claim to the herd matriarch’s yearling daughter. An excellent choice, for she is healthy and strong and takes after her mother. The tactics, such as they are, are masterful: First, they frighten the herd into stampeding and then systematically divide the fleeing individuals. Then, the targeted calf and her mother are chased into an ambush. Finally, it’s up to one brave individual to lasso the calf in what I would assume is a rite of passage.

The entire process, amazingly, is over in mere minutes with no injuries to any of the banthas or the Sand People. The tribe will be celebrating heartily tonight, I’ve no doubt.

Well, that’s enough excitement for now. I stand, stretch, and make my way to my homestead’s vaporator to collect the day’s drinking water.

***

He wanders in whilst I am preparing breakfast and lifts the lid of the teapot to examine its contents curiously. He makes a disgusted noise. “How can you drink this sludge?”

“Forgive me for being unable to meet your high standards in beverages,” I retort with gentle humor, “but the strong, bitter brew covers up the foul taste of the vaporator water.”

“If the water tastes that bad, the vaporator needs servicing.” He drops the lid back onto the teapot with a loud metallic clink.

“Oh? And who is going to take on such a complicated project? _You_?” I ask skeptically.

“Sure. Just don’t forget to pick up some neutralizing fluid next time you go into town,” he says, light and agreeable.

“Uh-huh.” I’m still skeptical, but it’s an easy enough errand to run. I add it to my mental to-do list as I remove a steaming flatbread loaf from the oven.

“Nice. All that practice is _finally_ paying off.”

“Yes, well.” A backhanded compliment, at best, with an implied insult. Hardly worth acknowledgment. “In any case,” I say, changing the subject as I lay out the bread on the table to cool, “I’m planning on going to visit your son today. He really needs to begin training, but I’m not optimistic that Owen will allow it. I’ve never been able to persuade him in the past.”

He reaches around me to tear off a piece from my newly baked loaf and starts nibbling on it casually. “Mmm,” he rumbles approvingly and swallows. “I don’t understand why you don’t just raise him yourself.”

“He’s better off with his family. And consider the fabulous job I did raising you,” I remind him.

“Point taken.” He lapses into thoughtful silence.

I duck into my underground storage larder, gathering up two containers of yogurt and one of fermented bean paste. Once back into the kitchen, though, he pulls me into a hot embrace that nearly causes me to drop the jars.

“We wouldn’t want you sharing your bed with another apprentice, now would we?” he whispers suggestively and tickles my earlobe with his tongue.

I jerk away, bristling and utterly scandalized by the implication of his words. “ _Former_ apprentice,” I grit out, dropping the food containers onto the table all at once with a clatter. “And I would _never_ —!”

He bursts into laughter, the sound brighter than Tatooine’s twin suns. “Why so serious, old man? It’s only a joke. I know you wouldn’t take advantage of Luke.”

I snort and favor him with a rude gesture.

“C’mon,” he whines, lifting his hands, appeasing, but I make a good show of busying myself with the teapot. How he hates to be ignored, even when it is feigned! “The bread is getting cold.” He is wheedling shamelessly. “You need to keep up your strength in your old age, Obi-Wan.”

Another insult, naturally, but I decide to let it go because I know he means well. Allowing myself to be reluctantly mollified, I sit down to enjoy my breakfast.

***

When I arrive at the farm, I am surprised to see several unfamiliar landspeeders parked on the outskirts of the property and a small crowd gathered together on the westernmost hillock. The beings comprising the crowd are mostly still, sober, and speaking in whispers. They are standing, I know, on the plot of land where the Lars family buries their dead.

Beru is the first to notice my approach. Her head is, unusually, covered by a white veil made of finely embroidered lace. “Good morning, Ben,” she says, greeting me with public formality. “We’re honored by your presence at the tenth year Remembrance of Shmi’s passing.”

I blink, surprised, and attempt to conceal my initial reaction with appropriate politeness. “Thank you very much for having me. I look forward to paying my respects to the deceased,” I say.

Shmi Skywalker died ten years ago today? I had no idea! Why, I wonder, did Anakin not see fit to mention it to me earlier…?

 

TO BE CONTINUED

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) The “Dolores” poem is actually a lengthy ode to sadomasochism—yes, I know. It is, hopefully, obvious that this story is not. It just so happens that these four lines suit the theme of Act Two really well. You’ll see what I mean. I promise. ;-)
> 
> (2) Mention of Luminara Unduli’s Force talents comes from a performance that Obi-Wan witnessed in Alan Dean Foster’s _The Approaching Storm_.


	10. Act Two, Scene II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obi-Wan attends Shmi’s Remembrance. By the end of the day, he has a new puzzle to solve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is pretty plot-heavy. You have been warned! ;-)

It is quiet. There are no speeches or songs or choreographed ceremonies. If there are prayers, no one utters them aloud. The overall mood is somber; everyone is dressed for the occasion.

Except for me. I feel rather self-conscious and out of place. While I sometimes feel I knew Shmi well through Anakin’s many colorful and loving stories of her, we never actually met, and a Remembrance is meant to commemorate—and to reinforce—bonds between the deceased, her family, and her dearest friends. As a single broken thread should not be sufficient to unravel a whole tapestry, a single death must not be allowed to tear apart the social fabric.

Anakin is the one who should be here. These beings are _his_ family. And his friends, too—I notice that Kit has come down from Mos Espa. The fierce-looking young woman standing beside him must be his spouse.

I maintain a respectful distance from the burial ground, since I have not brought the requisite offering. Most have brought simple handfuls of soil and native sandgrass seed. Only the Darklighter family, owners of the most prosperous moisture farm anywhere on the flatland, have brought actual flowering plants. These have been imported from offworld and will not, needless to say, survive very long in the desert.

Still, it’s the thought that counts.

The Ritual of Remembrance was not designed with a desert planet like Tatooine in mind, after all. It is, in fact, practiced by Humans on many of the peripatetic species’ colonized worlds, its precise origins lost to the proverbial sands of time. The procedure, such as it is, is simple: Each mourner casts a handful of soil and seeds or young plants on top of the grave. This is a symbolic offering to the deceased. Over time, a burial mound—ideally covered in living plants—forms.

Nothing grows over these graves, though, but then that’s because nothing grows on a moisture farm. Besides, no burial mound could survive in the face of the scouring winds and sandstorms that blow through the flatlands, leveling everything in their path. Owen and Beru must maintain their family plot diligently, for the mounds over Shmi’s grave, and Cliegg’s, are well-formed, symmetrical, and nearly a meter in height.

Beru even pours a generous pot of clear, sweet water onto Shmi’s mound after all of the mourners have made their offerings. A valiant, if ultimately futile, effort. But perhaps something will sprout and grow there for a few days, at least, before, inevitably, the farm’s vaporators steal the water back.

Once that is done, everyone reconvenes at the Lars farmhouse. Men, women, and children split up into three separate groups, each to their own—except for me, that is. To avoid Owen, I join the women in the kitchen instead, and no one even raises an eyebrow. Amongst Tatooine’s Human settlers, I am considered…odd. Insufficiently masculine, perhaps, and better off associating with sisters, wives, and daughters. Funny how these things work.

At the earliest available occasion, I brave the throng of chattering women to hand Beru one of the two containers of yogurt I removed from my underground storage larder this morning. She smiles delightedly and, upon opening the lid, exclaims, “This must be from Nara!”

“That’s right.” I confirm her supposition with a smile of my own.

Beru has a particular soft spot for that first bantha to give me her milk after the death of her calf. She insisted on naming the bantha “Nara” after her own mother, and after awhile, I found myself doing likewise. In time, with persistent questioning from Beru and increased facility from me in identifying individual banthas, every member of the herd acquired names. I’d named and befriended the whole herd before I knew it.

In the beginning, I was simply giving Nara’s milk to Beru for the infant Luke. It was too much for him alone to drink, however, so I started selling and bartering this valuable “wild milk” at market. In my second year on Tatooine and every year subsequent, I have been able to take modest amounts of milk from every lactating female in the herd. This has provided me with a steady source of income and a cover story of sorts to account for my odd, solitary little life in the Jundland Wastes.

Ben Kenobi: Bantha Whisperer. Yep, that’s me. Or something. Definitely anything but a fugitive Jedi Master.

Anyway, by year five, I’d even figured out how to make my own yogurt. When strained, it is sky blue, thick, and almost sinfully creamy. Some of the yogurt, I eat; the rest I trade for cases of vaporator water—which gives me the perfect excuse to visit the Lars moisture farm on a semi-regular basis.

With the exception of expensive offworld imports, vaporators are the only source of fresh water on Tatooine. But vaporator water—witness the unit I have back home—is not of particularly high quality. Clean, tasty drinking water requires advanced filtration technology as well as just the right concentration and balance of mineral additives. Moisture farmers guard bespoke recipes for drinking water jealously and pass them down from generation to generation; the Lars family is known for some of the best in the region. Were anyone to ask, I can, quite reasonably and honestly, say that I favor their water above all other options.

“So, how’s her little boy doing? Is he well?” Beru asks.

“Dolo’s doing fine,” I tell her. “He’s just been weaned.”

“That’s lovely— Ah, Tamora!” Beru calls out to the young woman I would presume to be Kit’s wife, a late arrival into the kitchen. “Please. Join us. We were discussing Ben’s bantha herd. Tamora, this is Ben. Ben, Tamora, Kit’s wife. You remember Kit, right? Tamora’s a newcomer to Tatooine like you, Ben, come down all the way from Mos Espa especially for Shmi’s Remembrance.”

We shake hands. Tamora’s grip is firm. Visually, husband and wife are complete opposites. She is fair where Kit is swarthy. Yet there is something in the easy confidence of her body language that readily reminds me of the onetime krayt dragon pearl hunter.

“Beru exaggerates,” I say warmly, while shifting my body so that Tamora is physically invited into our conversation. “They aren’t ‘my’ banthas; we merely live in the same neighborhood.”

“Nonsense!” Beru scoffs. “Those calves might as well be your babies, Ben.”

“Better banthas than actual babies, I say,” Tamora interjects, expression grim. “I just can’t see bringing any of my own into this horrid old world of ours. The Empire outlawed slavery throughout the galaxy—ha! So why is it that the Hutt seems to have more slaves than ever?”

An abrupt political turn. I wince inwardly. Also, I can’t help but notice a distinctive, offworld lilt to Tamora’s speech—Kuati, I realize with surprise, which would certainly explain the bravado. What is a Kuati woman doing on Tatooine?

“You mustn’t worry about the galaxy when making decisions about the future of your family,” Beru says, characteristically gentle.

“Yeah, well. At least you can keep away from most of it out here. But you should see these new slaves, Beru. Children, all of them. Where are they getting them from? You know you can bet the farm they weren’t born slaves. I’m not sure I credit the rumors, but it’s more than enough to make me want to keep my IUD in, thank you!”

“And what are the rumors?” I ask politely, careful not to seem too interested.

“Oh, the usual stuff. That they’ve been kidnapped, stolen from their families, and sold into slavery. I haven’t heard many reports of missing children, though, so like I said, I don’t take the rumors that seriously.” Tamora shrugged. “Still…”

The conversation tapers off as the three of us digest this new information. I have to consciously restrain myself from shuffling my feet and folding my arms tightly into the sleeves of my robe. I have a bad feeling about what I’ve just heard.

After a further moment of uncomfortable silence, Beru slaps the palms of her hands against her legs and declares with somewhat forced cheer, “Okay, I think that’s quite enough distressing news for one day. Tamora, you’re new here. Would you like me to introduce you to the rest of our guests?”

“Sure, that’d be nice.” Tamora is agreeable.

“Excellent. Wait just a moment.” Beru turns to me. “Ben, would you please go check on the children? Gods know Luke may have them halfway to Corellia by now.”

I chuckle and nod my assent. “A pleasure to meet you,” I say to Tamora as we part ways.

As it turns out, Beru had little reason for her concern. The men are all in the courtyard, drinking and playing sabacc rounds. The children are gathered nearby, admiring a model starfighter that actually flies via remote control. I watch it do twists, dives, and aerial somersaults in the midday suns. My stomach does a few sympathetic flip-flops. No, I do not miss flying _in the least_.

The boy holding the remote is one of the Darklighter children. He is showing Luke how to operate the controls.

I wonder if Luke will grow up to have a talent for piloting like his father. It would figure. I settle into what I hope is an unobtrusive corner to observe.

Unfortunately, Owen notices my arrival almost immediately and excuses himself from the sabacc table. He stomps over to confront me.

“I know you’ve got something to you want to say, so out with it already, Kenobi,” he hisses at me, low enough not to be overheard.

We’ve already had this conversation more times than I can count, but I decide to play along anyway. My patience is endless. “He’s seven years old. It’s time. There is much he needs to learn, Owen,” I say.

The model starfighter spins through the air in dizzying loops directly above us. A steep dive nearly grazes the top of Owen’s head. Luke chortles—he’s at the controls. The other children whoop and cheer as, victorious, the starfighter begins another aerial ascent.

“And he will be learning. In school, after the end of the dry season, like a normal child,” Owen says definitively. “Luke, enough! Don’t forget to share!” he barks in Luke’s direction. Then he turns back to me. “The last thing Tatooine needs is another crazy Jedi. You’ll be training him over my dead body, Kenobi.”

I’m unable to suppress a sigh. Eight years of compulsory education, in session five and a half days per week throughout the year. Annual intermission during the dry season. At best, Luke will learn basic literacy and arithmetic. At worst, he will be brainwashed by Imperial doctrine. I have worked successfully these past years keeping the penetrating gaze of the surveillance state as far away from the Lars family as possible. Luke is not, to the best of my knowledge, listed on any of the Imperial subject registers, but his anonymity will be a thing of the past if he is to be enrolled at school in Anchorhead. Once that happens, I will have to take further active measures to protect him.

Somehow. For now, I swallow my frustration.

“You are his guardian. I will, of course, abide by your decision,” I say.

“Good. Because my decision is final. You worry about your bantha family, Kenobi, and I’ll worry about mine,” Owen replies.

Luke is handing the remote control over to another child who is bouncing up and down in excitement. Owen returns to the rest of the men and their game of sabacc.

***

I stop over in town late in the afternoon.

After some routine errands, I head over to the cantina for a tall glass of chilled kumis. From my table underneath a shaded rooftop veranda, where I take my drink at leisure, I can see into the courtyard of Anchorhead’s one and only school. The grounds are empty and still at the time of the year, most of the children busy on the family farm and helping with harvest, and the small adobe schoolhouse is darkened and shuttered. I wonder what goes on inside, who the teachers are. My own education in the Temple was specialized and highly advanced; I know hardly anything about childhood learning on remote planets in the Outer Rim. It’s all a bit of a mystery, if I’m honest…

A sudden burst of urgent music distracts me from my ruminations. Ah, it seems that the cantina has switched on an Imperial news broadcast. At face value, it’s bound to be pure propaganda, but sometimes there is much to be detected beneath the polished surface. Curious, I shift in my seat so that I have a better view of the nearest holoprojector.

“We begin with breaking news of planetwide demonstrations on Chandrila, protesting the decision to relocate five prison camps and over 200,000 prisoners from former Separatist worlds,” the presenter announces. “I am on location in Hanna City, where a large march on the sector capitol is currently underway.”

The blue-tinged holoimage pulls back from the presenter to take in the scene behind him. Sure enough, an impressive throng of beings are marching, many holding signs and chanting slogans. I feel myself grimacing. New prison camps in the Core? You’d have to have been born yesterday not to know that this would be unpopular. Nevertheless, there is something distinctly small-minded and ugly, if not outright xenophobic, about the protests.

“What is motivating you to march today?” The news presenter, having gamely joined the march, is interviewing a random demonstrator as they walk.

“Don’t get me wrong. I believe sentient rights are important, and I’m no fan of forced labor,” the demonstrator replies. “But these beings are convicted criminals. They don’t belong anywhere near the Core!”

“I see,” the presenter says neutrally. “But what do you think—” His question cuts off abruptly as he stops walking. The demonstrator he was interviewing loses interest and, shrugging, leaves him behind. After a brief pause—someone must be relaying updates in real time to him via an earpiece—he addresses the camera directly. “Imperial Senator Mon Mothma of Chandrila is making a public statement. Do we have footage…?”

The broadcast switches abruptly to the elegantly-attired image of Mon Mothma, whose address appears to be well underway already. “—enlightened society committed to the just treatment and eventual rehabilitation of prisoners. We are optimistic that Chandrila will make a valuable contribution to the Empire in this regard, firstly by relieving the undue burden these prisoners place on impoverished systems, and secondly—”

I have heard enough. I rise from my table and head back into the cantina to settle my bill.

Mon Mothma is no friend of Palpatine’s, and she is obviously playing a dangerous game. Since the subjugation of Kashyyyk, it has become customary for the Empire to utilize political dissidents and petty criminals as forced labor. (Labor in order to accomplish what, exactly? I daren’t imagine.) Prison labor camps are concentrated in former Separatist systems on the Outer Rim that have no prior democratic traditions forbidding the practice or sizable Human settlements. A sort of legal slavery, but kept out of sight, out of mind. A unilateral decision to relocate these prisoners to Chandrila may seem to be privileging patriotism and loyalty to the throne over the will of the Chandrilan polity. In reality, it has the potential to bolster the ranks of various underground resistance movements with former prisoners—presuming the criminal charges against these prisoners are, as indeed I suspect they are, trumped up and “rehabilitation,” along with potential release, is possible—while depriving the Empire of their valuable labor.

I inevitably find myself reflecting at length upon what I’ve learned today as I make my way home. Since first taking up residence on Tatooine, I have become much better at understanding—and navigating—the myriad connections between the individual and the collective, the local and the galactic. My exile here has never meant true isolation from the sinister forces that brought down the Republic and fuel the tyranny of the Empire. Thus, I know damn well that the news of prison camps relocated to faraway Chandrila and the rumors of child slaves in comparatively nearby Mos Espa are linked.

It’s just that I’m not sure how. There are more pieces to this puzzle, and without them I cannot see how everything fits together. And more important, I cannot figure out whether or not I need to be concerned about becoming personally involved.

Unfortunately, I’m not feeling particularly optimistic.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) The character of Tamora in this story is a combination of Kitster’s first and second wives as depicted in Troy Denning’s _Tatooine Ghost_.
> 
> (2) The bantha names Nara and Dolo are from the Marvel _Star Wars_ comics series.
> 
> (3) IUD = intrauterine device. For some reason, I find it easier to imagine the Star Wars universe doing contraception mechanically/surgically with an IUD as opposed to medically/orally with pills.


	11. Act Two, Scene III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Interruptions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is actually a nicely-balanced chapter: plot, theme, and sex (in that order)!

The puzzle of the day is so engrossing that I practically wander straight into the dewback lying sound asleep on the edge of their encampment.

There are a handful of thoroughfares connecting the flatlands to the interior of the Jundland Wastes. I tend to avoid the most highly traveled routes when possible, and I am surefooted enough to have taken the time to blaze several dozen idiosyncratic trails through the difficult, rocky terrain. On the off-chance that I am being surveilled from afar, small precautions such as these should make my routine movements harder to track. It also keeps me clear of hungry krayt dragons. And perhaps more to the point, in seven years, I’ve never encountered another sentient being along the way.

So, I regard the campfire crackling and snapping cheerily in the middle of a narrow pass beneath a jagged overhang—along with the three figures huddled around it—with a not inconsiderable measure of surprise. One burly Besalisk, one diminutive Sullustan, and one non-descript figure wearing a full face helmet that may be either Human or Near-Human…plus enough firepower in blasters and handheld weaponry laid out in casual, open view to convince me that these are anything but upstanding Imperial subjects. Bounty hunters, perhaps, or mercenaries. What are they doing _here_?

The trio is deep in conversation. They do not seem concerned that they might be overheard. I creep closer, keeping carefully to the shadows and well away from the sleeping dewback. The saddle harnessed to its back assures me that it is probably docile and perfectly pleasant when awake, but better safe than sorry.

“—not being paid enough for this stinking heap of bantha poodoo,” the Besalisk is saying. All four of his arms wave emphatically.

“Agreed,” the Sullustan says. “And I’m going to have five additional clan mouths to feed starting next season. I say we go freelance.”

“A spacer stopping over from a wholesale trade run past Geonosis told me last week that you can name your price a couple of parsecs further out—” the Besalisk begins.

“I don’t like what I’m hearing about the goings on in that system,” the humanoid figure interrupts. His (her? its?) voice is artificially flat, anonymized by a vocoder in the mouthpiece of the helmet.

“All _I’m_ hearing is the sound of opportunity knocking. There is additional profit to be made on the merchandise offworld; the merchandise is ours for the taking. Hells, so are the credits!” the Sullustan says cantankerously, stroking his quivering jowls with one small hand.

“Those permanent installations…they aren’t just playing around out there, you know.” The vocoder makes it hard to tell, but that almost sounds like anxiety. “Anyway, the suppliers won’t like it if they don’t get paid. They’ll rat us out, and Jabba’ll be on us like mynocks on a starship hull,” the humanoid points out.

“Easily solved,” the Sullustan replies, pantomiming execution by blaster with his thumb and forefinger extended. “Can’t learn nothing from the good and dead.”

“We already have a standing arrangement with Jabba, if you remember, and it has been mutually beneficial thus far. His retribution would be terrible if he found out we’d gone freelance or otherwise jeopardized his relationship with the suppliers. It just isn’t worth it,” the humanoid says with a decisive shake of the head.

Oh dear. This can’t be a positive development. What exactly are the Hutt’s lackeys doing in the Jundland Wastes? And what is this about “merchandise” and “suppliers”…? I crane my head in closer, the better to eavesdrop on a discussion that has begun to take a distinctly hostile turn.

“Yeah, well, we could be long gone before _that_ happens,” the Besalisk growls, throat sac flushed with overt contempt. “Unless you like the idea of becoming that bloated goon’s latest carbonite wall mounting?”

“Of course not. But I really don’t think—” the humanoid’s protestations are cut off by a wet gurgle which, translated by the vocoder, sounds more like a sharp static discharge.

A long vibroblade dagger has been driven all the way to the hilt into the humanoid’s ribs. With a soft grunt, the Sullustan pulls the blade out, gush of blood that follows almost black in the wan light of Tatooine’s moons. The humanoid figure slumps forward, dead on the ground.

Shrugging, the Sullustan deactivates the vibroblade and wipes it clean on his left trouser leg. “That solves that problem. Now, where were we?” he asks the Besalisk.

“At the official conclusion of this debate, I believe,” the Besalisk says and looks at the corpse. His golden eyes narrow. “Lemme guess: You want me to dispose of the body?”

“You _do_ have twice as many arms.” The Sullustan makes a clucking sound that I recognize to be laughter.

“Fine. Then _you_ get to clear the camp. Might as well get going now.”

“Indeed. No time like the present. We can take those savages by surprise while they’re sleeping. They’re so much desert vermin anyway, and we’re not working for Jabba anymore, are we?” A pause. The Besalisk doesn’t mount any protest. “I call dibs on the credits!” the Sullustan tucks a fat credit pouch into his breast pocket and chortles as he extinguishes the campfire.

“Yeah, fine. Then I’m getting first pick of the merchandise those credits were supposed to buy,” the Besalisk retorts as he lifts the limp corpse of their onetime humanoid companion onto his shoulder and starts walking in what seems to be random direction.

Unfortunately, he’s coming directly toward me. I curse inwardly and retreat to narrow ledge some distance away. I’m no longer close enough to hear the conversation, but I still have a good vantage point from which to observe their movements. The Besalisk drops the body behind a boulder and covers it over in a desultory fashion with several large, loose stones. They then depart, the Sullustan mounted atop the dewback and the Besalisk on foot, heading northwest.

The only destination of note for a hundred kilometers in that general direction is a tribe of Sand People. What could the Sand People possibly have that’s of so much value that these opportunistic thugs are intending to betray their equally thuggish employer by attacking the tribe and taking it for themselves?! I’m reasonably certain they wouldn’t be interested in the banthas…

It’s obvious, of course, upon even a modicum of unhurried reflection. The Sand People have been known to keep slaves.

***

Qui-Gon always loved the Temple gardens best of all, and that is where I find him, sitting cross-legged at the foot of a venerable halspren tree.

He is not alone; someone has joined him in meditation. They are positioned face to face, knees practically touching, mirroring each other. As I approach, both men lift their heads in unison to regard me calmly, and I am a bit taken aback when I realize that Qui-Gon’s companion on this occasion is Dooku.

During those long ago days as a Jedi Padawan, I had known my Master’s former Master only distantly. His reputation had quite a long reach, though, even then, and it was widely assumed by many, including myself, that Qui-Gon had acquired his infamous independent streak from Dooku. At the time, however, our paths had never actually crossed. Later, when Dooku conducted his war of secession against the Republic, our paths crossed all too often, but whatever remained of Qui-Gon’s beloved Master had already been smothered beneath the suffocating mantle of a Sith Lord’s darkness.

I realize that I have never asked Qui-Gon about Dooku. He was responsible for too much suffering, too many innocent deaths; the subject is still too near.

Dooku’s sloe brown eyes gaze up at me. He looks younger than I have ever seen him, and his expression is warm, but he does not speak. Nor does he move.

Qui-Gon rises smoothly from the ground, his big body improbably graceful, and brushes off the many halspren leaves clinging to his hair and robes. I smile, watching them flutter and swirl away, jagged fan shapes in autumnal shades of orange, red, and gold vibrant against the pale sky. There is a subtle fragrance on that gentle, whistling breeze, like the first shuura fruit harvest. Like Nubian allspice.

“Talk to me, Obi-Wan,” he says, the palm of his hand a bracing, comforting warmth between my shoulder blades as he ushers me toward one of the garden’s many promenades.

I fall automatically into step beside him, our strides slow and measured, but what I’ve just seen is uppermost in my mind when I open my mouth to speak. “Is Dooku really here?” I ask. I do not bother to hide my bewilderment.

“Are you really here? Am I, for that matter?” He replies to my question with other questions, naturally.

“I didn’t mean that rhetorically—” I begin, feeling inexplicably irritated by his obtuseness.

“I know you did not,” he interrupts, voice soothing and indulgent, “and the simplest answer to your question is both yes and no.”

Yes _and_ no. That _would_ be Qui-Gon’s simplest answer. I can’t resist heaving a long and heartfelt sigh.

“Yes, in the sense that the Dooku I know is here,” he continues, ignoring my exasperation. “No, in the sense that the Dooku _you_ know is not. I did not live to witness his fall to the dark side as you did, you see.”

“No, I don’t see.” Clear as Dagobah’s mud, thank you very much.

“Did he try to convince you that I would have joined him, had I lived?”

“Would you have joined him?” I ask. A part of me had always wondered about that.

“No, Obi-Wan. Dooku was deceiving himself. The part of me that dwelt in him was so distorted that my voice could not reach him. He was lost.”

Lost somewhere Qui-Gon’s voice couldn’t reach him? I give myself plenty of time to mull that one over. We continue walking, the heels of our boots clicking a steady rhythm against the flagstones. “You tried to contact him, but he’d gone so completely out of his mind that he couldn’t hear you,” I say at last. It isn’t a question.

Qui-Gon does not respond. His silence is tacit acknowledgement of the validity of my conclusions.

“But wait—” I say suddenly, a new and unwelcome thought only now occurring to me. “Why couldn’t _I_ hear you all those years?” All those years of missing his surety and his wisdom, of wondering what advice he would give, whether he’d affirm or admonish me for my choices. “Was I that completely out of my mind as well?!” That final part comes out as a plaintive groan. I can’t help it. All those years… _All those years…!_

“ _You_ , my precocious former apprentice, used to hear me perfectly…but you were unable to distinguish my voice from the one in your imagination. You did not perceive that which you did not expect.”

Oh.

I can feel the effervescent tingle of Qui-Gon’s amusement.

“This truth _does_ beggar belief,” I say slowly.

“Indeed.”

***

The neutralizing fluid purchased in town today is stowed in the back of a kitchen cupboard. The case of water from the Lars farm, however, I leave out on the table to be opened come next morning.

I know I really ought to be meditating further upon what Qui-Gon has revealed of the sacred, esoteric majesties of the Force. My training will not proceed otherwise. But the other more profane, yet imminently pressing, revelations of the day are proving too much of a distraction. Why is the Hutt cartel using the Sand People to procure slaves? Such a thing would have been unheard of a decade ago, and I can’t help but wonder what that portends—especially since these slaves may be destined ultimately for subjugated former Separatist systems like Geonosis.

We Jedi never were able to fully eliminate slavery from the galaxy, it’s true. It was, however, confined to peripheral worlds such as Tatooine, places where the practice was so deeply embedded that removing it root and branch would have upended the social and economic order, disrupting the lives of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of beings. We had not the means, and the Republic had not the will, to cope with the magnitude of disruption which would, inevitably, follow.

Perhaps we erred too far from justice in the name of security; perhaps we defended the interests of the entrenched elite too unquestioningly; and perhaps we were too complacent. These are valid criticisms. Maybe, if the Order weren’t scattered and broken, we would have eventually come to reconsider our policy of non-interference. In any case, given my need to maintain a low profile here, non-interference seemed the wisest course. But this…this is uncomfortably close to home. Certainly, I would never have supposed that slavery might _expand_ on Tatooine under the Imperial regime and Palpatine’s authoritarian imperatives of administrative centralization. Despite everything, anti-slavery statutes still carry the weight of settled law in the Core.

Ah yes, the Core. So far away—and so near. And all the while, on top of everything else, I’ve got Senator Mon Mothma’s polished politician’s speech echoing and bouncing about within my skull—since when has the forced labor of political prisoners become a legitimate, open subject of debate in an “enlightened society”…?! Impossible not to conclude that these two developments are somehow connected. Slaves, I suspect, may be wanted to make up for new labor shortages.

It makes me feel terribly dirty. I’ve done the laundry and made the bed; I decide that I ought to bathe before turning in for the evening.

He intercepts me at the entrance to the refresher.

“There you are!” he declares. “I was starting to worry that I’d be jerking off into a pillow tonight.”

How uncivilized! I don my best glare. “Anakin, is this casual nudity really necessary?”

“Aww, c’mon. You know you like it.” He preens, and in spite of myself, my eyes sweep up and down the length of his body. I can see how soft and supple his skin is, almost as if he’s glowing from the inside. He smells good too, heady male musk and the evergreen honey scent of fresh bathing oil. At least _he’s_ clean. If only he weren’t blocking my path into the refresher, I might be able to make progress in that direction as well.

“Actually,” I say, remembering my surprise this morning upon my arrival at the farm, “what I would like most right now is to ask you a question. Why didn’t you tell—oof!” He’s pushed me back into a support pillar, hard.

It’s not the only thing that’s hard.

“Ask me later.”

And his tongue is plunging into my ear, his erection prodding my hip. I can no more deny his desire than I can deny my own. He takes me right then and there, upright against the support pillar, him slick and warm from the bath, me sweaty and grimy from the long day out in the desert, and it is wonderful, so wonderful, to surrender to that firm but tender entry, the practiced but considerate thrusts, shallow at first…now deeper…now faster…setting my insides ever so sweetly alight with inner fire until we both explode in orgasm, moaning and convulsing and desperately kissing, the purity of our ecstasy only two synchronized heartbeats from forever.

I am still slumped on the floor, semen cooling on my belly, when I sense a troubling disturbance in the Force.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) There are aspects to this story that are intentionally confusing and/or obscure. This is, after all, strictly from Obi-Wan’s subjective POV, and he definitely does not have all the answers. That said, by all means feel free to ask me questions anytime. It may well be that I’m falling short as a writer and some things are _un_ intentionally confusing. (Wouldn’t be the first time, alas!)


	12. Act Two, Scene IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a suspiciously familiar dewback in among the local bantha herd this morning. 
> 
> And there is something else to be found as well: something, or rather some _one_ , that might force Obi-Wan into action.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you’re also in the market for something a bit lighter than “What Dwells in Us” this weekend, please do check out [“Perfect”](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10981989), a silly, sexy, and totally angst-free obikin fanfic written as an antidote of sorts to all of the seriousness of mind required to write this story.

A sandstorm raging hundreds of kilometers to the east blots out both of Tatooine’s suns. The darkness, therefore, is uncharacteristically slow to lift this morning, and as a consequence, I find myself still abed rather later than usual.

Although I’m not expecting that yellow wall of grit and wind to head in my direction, sandstorms come and go and change direction without warning, and my first chore of the day is to check the entrances to my living quarters and eopie stable. Inevitably, doors are weak spots; a good, well-placed gust can blow them right off their hinges entirely. The _last_ thing I need is to wake up tomorrow buried beneath my own personal piece of Dune Sea. Digging oneself out of one’s home is a daunting prospect even for exiled Jedi Masters, and a persistent stiffness in my lower back reminds me that I’m not getting any younger. Best not to end up having to dig in the first place.

I also take the opportunity to wrap the condenser unit of my homestead’s vaporator up tightly in a spare blanket that had been awaiting its turn in the dry cleaning machine. While thankfully, even old vaporator models such as mine are capable of withstanding a thousand sandstorms, my daily water harvest is gritty enough as it is—I deem further meteorological assistance to be wholly unnecessary.

Besides, I’m not a bantha with infinitely regenerating teeth. Too much sand in one’s food and drink is hazardous one’s long-term dental health if one is Human.

And speaking of banthas—

The resident herd is grazing on a dune a mere fifty meters or so beyond the ridge line…and they are not alone. There is one dewback, fully saddled and harnessed but seemingly rider-less, standing in their midst. I blink and squint. Is this the same dewback I saw last night? And if so, where is the Sullustan that rode it?

Now I’m feeling distinctly uneasy. I don’t want Jabba’s cronies showing up uninvited on my doorstep! Carefully, I scan for any signs of the Sullustan or his Besalisk compatriot. There’s nothing. Nothing whatsoever.

No, wait—

Nara has lifted her head. Her eyes are concealed by a thick curtain of woolly hair, but it’s like she is seeking my gaze. When she is sure she has attained it, she then turns her head and nudges Dolo, who is standing at her side. He steps forward obligingly—

Revealing a diminutive humanoid figure, lying crumpled, twisted, and facedown in the sand. I’m not sure if it’s the Sullustan or not, but whoever it is, her or she does not appear to be moving. Is it alive or dead? As if in answer to my thoughts, Nara proceeds to lower her head to the body on the ground and nudge it gently, in much the same manner that she nudged Dolo. The body twitches in response and rolls onto its back, and it’s not the Sullustan.

The face is covered in a primitive mask. It’s a Sand Person, and the size would suggest that it is a youngling.

How troubling. Younglings are not normally allowed to leave tribal encampments. I make my way down into the dunes to investigate this unusual arrival. The bantha herd, long accustomed to my presence, barely acknowledges me, and their lack of fear with regards to the Sand Person is encouraging. Closer now, I notice that it does not appear to be armed, either with blaster rifle or gaderffii, and I can detect no visible injury.

“Hello there,” I say softly, holding my hands out, palms up, in front of me. I do not wish to be taken as a threat.

At the sound of my voice, the Sand Person levers itself wearily up on its elbows and into a sitting position. Then it does something wholly unexpected: It removes its mask.

The Sand People will not expose their faces before other sentient beings, not under the most terrible pain of death—their gods strictly forbid it. Even parents never know the faces of their offspring. The sole exception made is for one’s life mate…and only under the cover of night where the suns cannot bear witness to any shame. It is virtually impossible to conceive of a Sand Person who would unmask before a stranger.

But this…this no Sand Person! I stare, my eyes widening.

“M-mister?” the Human child at my feet asks, gulping, voice hesitant and full of fear. “P-please, mister. I’m… I’m n-no Tusken. So can y-you… Can you help me?”

***

Her name, she says, is Emmie, she reckons that she is eleven years old, and she is—or rather _was_ —a slave.

Otherwise, she doesn’t talk much in the beginning. Some of the reason for that, I have no doubt, is nervousness. But mostly it’s because she’s too busy devouring breakfast from my kitchen, and her bites are too big and hurried to allow for chewing and chatting simultaneously.

I study her closely. There is something about Emmie’s big, watery eyes, her sharp cheekbones, and the blue-white pallor of her complexion, not just a side effect of however many Force-forsaken years spent under a Sand Person’s wraps and mask, that is hauntingly familiar. Emmie is not, I realize belatedly, a Human child. Well, not completely. She is half-Human and half-Zabrak. Like Asajj Ventress had been. It seems this particular genetic mix produces a predictable phenotype. No wonder she looked familiar.

Thankfully, there don’t seem to be any similarities in personality between her and Ventress.

I am amused to note that Emmie seems most enthusiastic about the hard bantha sausage. (The sausage is the very last one remaining in my storage larder, and she’s welcome to it; I’ve basically given up on eating bantha meat, given that my best friends on Tatooine are, well, _banthas_ …) I, meanwhile, nibble on braised shuura leaf wraps and bits of bread topped with yogurt and bean paste. I offer her hot tea, but she does not want it. So instead, we share generous cups of water from the newly opened case brought home yesterday from the Lars farm.

Gradually, as Emmie’s stomach fills, her story starts to emerge. She tells it in fits and starts and with no particular chronological fidelity. Nevertheless, the basic contours are readily apparent.

Her mother was the daughter of a merchant in Bestine; and her father was an independent-minded Zabrak archaeologist come to Tatooine to study the extinct sentients from which the Sand People and (some say) the Jawas are descended. Because her mother’s family did not approve of her parents’ relationship, they eloped to the part of the planet that is, in essence, the furthest from Bestine you can possibly go without heading up into space. That part in question, a rift valley on the southern edge of the Western Dune Sea, is also among the most isolated and remote. Remarkable that they were attempting to raise a child out there. But in a way, it’s not terribly surprising that their homestead was ransacked by marauding Sand People.

Her father was killed trying to protect his family. Emmie and her mother were captured and enslaved, the “rightful” spoils of a war against offworlders which, from the point of view of the Sand People, has never ended. Abuse, hard labor, and general privation meant that her mother did not last long, passing away within a year. Emmie, though, had a child’s legendary adaptability—three years ago, she even managed to survive the Great Crossing—

“The ‘Great Crossing’…?” I interrupt, questioning.

“We crossed the sands,” she explains, her speech stronger and more confident now that she is no longer quite so afraid (or so hungry), “all the way from the ancestral fields of Tir’Not to A’Rath.”

A’Rath is the name the Sand People give the Jundland Wastes. Tir’Not I have not heard before, but I assume it refers to the southern lands where Emmie was born. The sands can only be the Western Dune Sea.

I am utterly staggered by the implications: A primitive tribe of Sand People made an overland crossing roughly one-third the total circumference of Tatooine. And now, they are my neighbors.

“Why did they choose to leave their ancestral fields so far behind?” I ask.

But I figure I already know the answer: Climate change caused by moisture-thirsty settlers. Global weather patterns mean that even remote areas such as Tir’Not may be adversely affected, and the Sand People themselves are especially vulnerable because they depend on their banthas. The banthas, in turn, depend upon good sandgrass grazing, and what if the sandgrass mysteriously withers and dies?

Emmie confirms my hunch.

“But why choose A’Rath?”

“The fields were available, and the A’Rathi weren’t around to defend it anymore,” she says with a shrug.

It seems that the tribe of Sand People which used to live in the area disappeared without a trace several years ago. Rumor has it, Emmie tells me, that they dared show their faces to the Brother Suns and were cursed back into the dust from whence they came. I don’t credit such tall tales; perhaps the truth is closer to famine or plague. Emmie is not clear on exactly when this tragedy was supposed to have struck, but it must have been sometime after Shmi’s death since there was definitely a formidable tribe of Sand People active back then!

“Some of the Tir’Noti were scared. They said the A’Rathi’s curse would claim us as well,” Emmie said pensively. “But Chieftain wouldn’t change his mind. And he was right: Life _is_ better here…or it was at first.”

Within a year, A’Rath’s sandgrass too had begun to die. However, unlike in remote Tir’Not, there are other ways to make a living—less reputable ones like the slave trade. The Tir’Noti had arrived in the Jundland Wastes with twenty-one slaves, most children and all of them purebred Human except for Emmie. Selling them off, a few at a time, brought the tribe much-needed additional income. The male children seemed to command the highest prices. Eventually, though, there were only four left. Last night, Emmie and three other girls younger than she is had been destined for the sinister unknown of Jabba’s holdings in Mos Espa.

For what purpose? She didn’t know. But she hadn’t been keen on the prospect. The trio of offworlders who had been taking her friends away struck her as violent and cruel. Life with the Sand People, at least, was familiar, if it wasn’t always pleasant. It’s natural to become accustomed, even sympathetic, to one’s captors, and in far worse situations. 

In any case, the sneak attack planned by the Besalisk and the Sullustan went very wrong when the children, resisting abduction, had raised an alarm. Several Sand People were killed before the offworlders were overpowered, and those deaths provoked a violent—and likely deadly—retribution from the tribe. This battle must have been the disturbance in the Force I felt last night. In the confusion, Emmie was able to mount the dewback and make her escape, riding nonstop till dawn. She didn’t know what happened to the two attackers, but she doubted they would have been shown any mercy.

Her primary concern lay with the remaining children. The tribe had become dependent upon income from the slave trade, she explained, and it seemed inevitable that they would be sold anyway.

“Please, mister—” she begins.

“Ben,” I correct.

“Please, _Ben_. Can you help me?”

I’d thought, when Emmie first asked me for help out on the dunes, that she was asking for herself. A normal assumption…and incorrect. Her concerns for her own future fade to insignificance when she considers her friends. She wants help to save _them_. I admire her selflessness.

No matter how emotionally compelling her appeal, however, it is not my place to interfere. I do not want to get between the Sand People and the Hutt slave cartel. This injustice, no matter how grave, does not supersede my mission.

So, I sip my water and say nothing.

***

“Tuskens are _vermin_ , Obi-Wan!!”

“Shhh, indoor voice,” I admonish him.

After consuming such a large breakfast, Emmie could barely keep her eyes open. I suggested that she rest, and after a few weak protests, she accepted my suggestion. At the moment, she is sound asleep in my bed. And until I decide exactly what to do with her, I’d prefer it stays that way.

“Do _something_! What the fuck is wrong with you?!”

“If you insist on shouting, I must insist that we take this outside,” I say. “I should probably check on the dewback. It may be head-butting the Cee-oh-too by now, goodness knows.”

Fortunately, the Cee-oh-too Supercritical is unmolested, and the dewback currently quartered in my eopie stable is also sound asleep. I’m relieved that it seems content where it is. It wouldn’t do to have the dewback mount latterly belonging to a missing Sullustan on Jabba’s payroll loitering in open view anywhere near my homestead.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any suitable dewback fodder on hand. I’m not even sure how much or how often they need to eat. Hopefully, I think to myself as I rid the feeding trough of several years’ worth of dust and grit and wipe it down for good measure, its slow reptilian metabolism can go without a bit longer.

“What are you going to do?”

I grunt noncommittally as I pour water into the trough from a stockpile canister. The dewback’s snoring reminds me of a Corellian trumpeterflute. It’s almost soothing. At least it won’t be thirsty when it wakes up…

“ _Well?!_ ” He knows I can’t ignore him forever.

Sighing, I turn to face him. His arms are crossed, and his feet are spread widely apart in an aggressive stance. He glares blaster bolts at me. I tug on my chin thoughtfully. “She said her mother’s father was a merchant in Bestine. Perhaps she has family there that’ll take her in…”

“Yes, yes, yes,” he says impatiently, robes rustling as he fidgets, “but what about the Tuskens? And the _slaves_??”

“Given your personal history, Anakin, you have every right not to like this situation. But as you know full well, your son must remain my first priority. I cannot just run off to be the hero whenever—”

He snarls in frustration. “This _is_ about Luke!”

I blink.

“Were you even listening?! Those vermin are trafficking in child slaves, and they’re about to run out of livestock. _Where do you suppose they’re going to acquire more?!_ ”

“I still don’t see—” I begin, plaintive.

Oh.

Oh dear.

I do not hesitate. I hurry back to my living quarters and head straight into the bedroom.

Emmie continues to slumber. I reach for one slim shoulder and shake her. She startles awake with a soft cry, bolt upright and stiff with fear, but when her eyes clear and focus on me, the tension in her body relaxes.

“What are the Tir’Noti going to do for credits when they run out of slaves? Will they try to take more from settler homesteads?” I ask her without any preamble. “You need to tell me. This is important, Emmie,” I hasten to add.

“I-I guess… M-maybe…” she says, stuttering again. She’s confused by my sudden concern. I’m old and living alone; I’m not a prime target. She reflects for a time and then continues with more confidence, “But I think they’ll try The Mouth first. Many Human boys go to play there. Chieftain has said he wants to set up an ambush.”

The Mouth is what the Sand People call Beggar’s Canyon. Luke plays there sometimes with his friends.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Are things a bit clearer now? All of the pieces for Act Two are now on the proverbial board; the rest is in the arrangement! :-D


	13. Act Two, Scene V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A plan is executed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI: Based on discussion in the comments on previous chapters, I have made some adjustments/additions to the prefatory note at the top of this story.

Emmie does not like my idea. She does not wish to be reunited with her mother’s family in Bestine. She is being quite vehement about it, in fact.

“They called my father a monster. They told my mother that her children would be abominations of nature!” Her face is flushed with fury, and it hurts my heart to think that such xenophobia could be imposed upon one this young, one this primed to accept and internalize its premises without question.

Emmie is sitting on my bed, her knees drawn up tightly to her chest. She seems very small and vulnerable. I sit on the floor, facing her, with my back to the wall that’s furthest from the entrance to my bedroom. My position has been carefully chosen: I am far enough away that she does not feel threatened but still close enough for comfortable conversation. We have been deep in discussion for over an hour.

“People can change their minds about anything, given time,” I try saying, eminently reasonable. “How old are you? Twelve? Maybe things are different now.”

She just crosses her arms and shakes her head stubbornly. Forcibly, I am reminded of Anakin during his early years as a Padawan. He used to favor exactly the same stubborn expression, and once he was wearing it, getting him to budge was next to impossible.

I sigh—ah, younglings! Emmie is afraid, and she hopes to conceal that fear behind a shield of anger and obstinacy. She lost her way of life once when the Sand People attacked her parents’ homestead. And then, after years of surviving among the Sand People, Jabba’s thugs arrived to claim her, upending her way of life yet again. New beginnings are hard. I suppose I can’t blame her for not wanting to face them.

“Very well,” I concede.

The tension seems to drain out of her like sand through a sieve. With almost brutal swipes, she rubs her fists into her eyes; I know she is trying desperately not to cry. Wasting water on tears is a sin in the desert.

I stand and reach out to touch the top of her head, hair shorn short to better accommodate the wrappings and mask of a Sand Person, yet soft as shimmersilk on my palm nonetheless, and stroke gently. “Tell me what you want, Emmie.”

“I-I wanted… I thought…” She whispers, hesitating for a moment. Then she begins again, stronger. “Next year I will be of age. Old enough to take a bantha and win full membership in the tribe. I am brave. I know I could have done it. B-but now…” Her voice trails off, and she gazes vacantly off into the distance, miserable.

Ah yes, the bantha roundup. Their rite of passage. I hadn’t realized that the Sand People ever freed their slaves or allowed beings of other species into their tribes. This isn’t the chattel slavery of the galaxy’s bad old days; slave-taking amongst the Sand People must be something much, much more complex than I ever realized. However I try to compensate, my Human-centric biases nevertheless continue to blind me to basic truths about the world around me. And it does make sense, I suppose. Given the extent to which they conceal their bodies, a wide range of Humanoid species might ostensibly be beneath, making tribal membership less a matter of biology and more a matter of cultural practice and conformity.

Clothing which both conceals and proclaims identity… Huh, that reminds me…

“What about the other three slaves? What would have been their prospects? Do they feel the same?” I ask.

I haven’t forgotten about the potential danger to Luke and the Lars family that this tribe of Sand People represents; something still has to be done. Fortunately, Emmie’s answers to my questions give me a new idea, and when I present it to her, she seems to like it very much.

***

We watch Emmie depart, a tiny, dewback-mounted figure in tattered robes amid the vast, rocky terrain of the Jundland Wastes. In a pouch, she carries enough credits to purchase her freedom, and in her head, she carries what I am optimistic will be a compelling offer to put before the Tir’Noti Chieftain.

“You’re out of your mind,” he says after Emmie is out of sight.

“Thank you for your valuable input. It’s always appreciated,” I reply, deadpan.

He is not amused. “You can’t negotiate with them, Obi-Wan.”

“I have to try.”

“You’re just going to get used.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not like _you_ had any better ideas.”

“You never like my ideas!” he huffs indignantly. He does have a point…at least when it comes to diplomatic negotiations, anyway. But his expression is so cranky and comically fierce that I can’t help but laugh.

“I like some of them,” I say, leaning over to nuzzle the soft skin of his cheek with my nose and lips.

He accepts the gesture of affection and its implicit compromise, and we share a tender kiss. His tongue jousts with mine playfully. Eventually, he joins me on my favorite outcropping, and we sit there side by side, not speaking, simply holding each other close.

“Why didn’t you tell me that it was the tenth anniversary of your mother’s death yesterday?” I ask, finally breaking the silence.

“You never asked. You never do, Obi-Wan.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t tell me. You know I’ll always listen to whatever it is you have to say.” I touch my forehead to his and run one hand through his mop of coarse curls.

He pulls away from me and stands up abruptly. There are torn strands of his hair caught between my fingers. “You know what? You aren’t prepared to have this conversation,” he says, his voice becoming distant and cold. “Good luck making nice with the Tuskens. Remember—I did warn you.”

I blink, baffled and hurt, but he’s already gone.

***

The next day, I make my way on foot to the designated meeting place: a wide, shallow basin deep within the Wastes with only one point of entry. It is late in the afternoon, and the twin suns hang low in the sky, lengthening the shadows and staining the ground in rich shades of crimson and gold. My approach is being surreptitiously monitored—I can feel the watchful presences all around me in the Force—but I take the hidden sentries as a positive sign.

The Sand People, it seems, have chosen to entertain my proposal. I’d thought it would be attractive to them, but of course I couldn’t be sure. What a relief! Now, even the blaster rifles undoubtedly trained upon me cannot dampen my good spirits.

They are already there, waiting, and although she has her mask on, I recognize Emmie immediately, for she is the only child present. She is kneeling slightly off to the side.

When she sees me, she stands and comes running up to me. “Ben!” she exclaims. She seems happy—another positive sign.

“Did he accept my offer?” I whisper the question.

“I don’t know,” she replies, softer this time, matching my hushed tone, “but he has consented to this meeting.”

“So I see.”

We approach the Chieftain and his retinue of four warriors, at attention and arrayed in formation behind him. Their bantha mounts are with them; the Chieftain’s bantha is the largest female I have ever seen. Her magnificent horns have been elaborately carved, and the wool around her face has been intricately braided and tied with colorful beads. One of the other banthas, I note, is the yearling calf recently taken from the local herd. So, these are indeed the same Sand People who occasionally show themselves in the area around my homestead.

“I come before you with a proposal in two parts,” I begin without preamble, addressing the Chieftain. “You already have my good-faith payment for Emmie’s freedom. I am willing to pay the same amount thrice over for the freedom of the remaining child slaves in your care. What say you?”

Emmie translates my words from Basic into the Sand People’s native tongue. The Chieftain inclines his masked head slightly, and I know by this that he is listening.

After she finishes, there is a long, pregnant pause. Then, the Chieftain begins to speak, an eerie, high-pitched cadence of yodels, hisses, whistles, and shrieks.

“He accepts your offer!” Emmie says excitedly. “Payment is expected now.”

“And will all four of the children be allowed to rejoin the settlers or remain with you as members of the tribe, as they so choose?” I ask.

Again, Emmie translates.

The Chieftain nods once.

“You have my sincerest thanks.” I acknowledge his agreement with another bow and remove a thick wad of crisp, new credits from an inner pocket of my tunic. This is the first time in years that I’ve needed to use the funds provided to me by Bail Organa.

Emmie takes the credits from me and hands them over to the Chieftain. He flicks through the credits, carefully counting each bill and noting the amounts. He emits a pleased, popping croak.

I acknowledge his evident pleasure with a low sweep of my hand and resume speaking. “Now, for the second part of my proposal: For each season that you do not to kill, kidnap, or otherwise molest any settlers on the flatlands, I will provide the same amount of credits you have received today.”

The Chieftain holds up three fingers. I do not need Emmie’s translation to know what he is saying.

“No.” I shake my head and raise my thumb and forefinger. “Double the amount—not a decicredit more.”

Shrill, outraged hooting from the Chieftain’s retinue, and I feel the danger in the Force half a second before one of the warriors launches himself forward to impale me on his gaderffii. I sidestep the charge easily, using the warrior’s own momentum to disarm, flip, and throw him face down in a single, fluid motion.

I am holding the gaderffii against the prone warrior’s neck. I know I have just moved faster than normal eyes can perceive. What will these Sand People do? I wait, guarded and wary.

Then, there is a strange, shrill hooting. The Chieftain is laughing. Slowly, I lower the gaderffii, place it on the ground, and take a step backward. The Chieftain barks a stern command, and my attacker stumbles to his feet and, muttering, withdraws to the rear of the retinue.

We resume our negotiation as if there had never been any interruption.

“You’ve impressed the Chieftain, and he apologizes for the poor behavior of his son,” Emmie translates. “He accepts your offer…and he’s throwing in a bonus.”

A bonus? What in the galaxy could _that_ be—?

Another Sand Person emerges from a concealed alcove. He, or she, is leading a dewback. There looks to be two bodies lashed to its back.

Hmm, how unexpected. Well, that will make things easier.

A bonus indeed.

***

It takes three days of travel to reach Mos Espa.

Once inside the city proper, I traverse the narrow, crowded streets, dewback with its grim cargo in tow, and allow the Force to guide me in the direction that I need to go. Eventually, it leads me to an unassuming-looking garage in the shadow of a grand podracing arena.

It is not race day, so the garage does not seem especially busy. Nevertheless, I forego the main transparisteel bank of doors in the front and elect to enter via a side entrance just wide enough to permit passage of the dewback as well.

I am quite surprised by what I find inside. There are no podracers or pod parts anywhere in sight. Instead, the space is chock full of swoop bikes in various states of (dis)assembly, and the grease-streaked mechanic wielding a fusion torch in one hand and a durasteel spanner in the other is—

 _Tamora_. Kit’s wife.

Her face hardens when she sees me. “Over there,” she says flatly, indicating an office cubicle incongruously set up in the back rightmost corner of the garage. There is no sign of recognition in her eyes, but then I would not have expected any.

Today, I am not Ben the desert hermit. Today, I wear the helmet of Jabba’s murdered henchman.

The cubicle’s sole occupant is a blue-skinned Twi’lek male, dwarfed by messy piles of flimsiplast on his desk. He wears an ostentatious monocle and a supercilious expression. His teeth are very white and filed in the traditional Twi’lek manner into sharp, triangular points. He’s so obviously a mid-level functionary of a criminal enterprise that there ought to be a holoimage of him next to a datapad dictionary entry for “middleman.”

Without ceremony, I untie the desiccated corpses of the Sullustan and the Besalisk from the back of the dewback and dump them on the floor. Then, I remove a pouch full of credits and toss it onto the Twi’lek’s desk.

“This is what you get for trying to conduct business with Tuskens!” I declare, the helmet’s vocoder flattening my burst of feigned outrage into an equally artificial monotone that renders me indistinguishable from the helmet’s previous wearer. “I’m lucky to have gotten away with my life!”

The Twi’lek completes five calculations for what appears be a double-accounting exercise before looking at me above the rim of his monocle. He doesn’t see much; the helmet also conceals my face. “Will that be all, sir?” he asks, voice mild, like I’ve made a regularly-scheduled delivery instead of an unscheduled body dump. Ah, the banality of evil. At least my deception appears to be working.

“No, I’m here to tender my resignation,” I say. “I’ve decided to spend more time with family in Bestine,” I add on a whim, thinking of Emmie. The planetary capital has the largest permanent Imperial presence of any settlement on Tatooine; the Hutt would risk unpleasant attention from the authorities if he were to inconvenience former low-level employees like the one I’m impersonating there.

“Oh yeah? Well, good for you. We’d already taken you off the payroll anyway. On the erroneous assumption that you’d shuffled this mortal coil, of course.” The Twi’lek’s lekku twitch with amusement.

How typical. “You won’t need any new Help Wanted ads,” I say. “The Tuskens clearly find killing offworlders more edifying than selling slaves.”

“To the contrary. Your replacements are on their way to make contact with those dusty savages as we speak,” the Twi’lek says, momentarily distracted by what appears to be misplaced decimal point. “Seems they’re promising even more top-quality merchandise since you went out on assignment.”

“Oh. I…see.”

No. This is bad. _Very, very bad_.

Anakin is going to be insufferable when he finds out.

There is a long pause.

The Twi’lek moves the thick pile of flimsiplast in directly front of him off to the side of his desk with a heavy thump and picks up my pouch of credits—to see if the correct amount is in there, which, naturally, it is. Plus extra. He is pleased. I thank Bail silently. “Now, if that will be all…?” he says finally, less question than suggestion.

“Yes.”

The dewback fell asleep right there on the floor of the garage during our short conversation. I prod it awake and upright with a boot toe to its soft underbelly and take my leave without further discussion.

“Good day to you,” the Twi’lek calls out.

As soon as I’m back onto the street, I lose the helmet in a nearby refuse heap and leave the dewback tied down to a public hitching post.

Then I return to the garage. This time, I make use of the front entrance.

Tamora’s expression on the second occasion is much warmer, and she greets me with a bright smile. “Ben? Ben Kenobi? What an unexpected surprise!”

I mirror her smile. “I just happened to be passing by, and I couldn’t help but notice…” I pause and scratch my neck, as if mildly embarrassed by my own barely-suppressed enthusiasm. “Tell me—are these racing swoops?”

 

TO BE CONTINUED


	14. Act Two, Scene VI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Confrontations, past and present. A long-buried secret resurfaces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uhh, yeah. Things are about to take a rather dark turn.

Tamora’s racing swoop is perfectly capable of reaching speeds in excess of 240 kilometers per hour. But it’s nothing like riding an ordinary swoop bike, and the terrain between Mos Espa and the remote interior of the Jundland Wastes is exceedingly difficult, so I’m averaging only a bare fraction of that.

How I _despise_ flying. Humans have arms and legs—not wings!—for a reason. And although the repulsorlift engines do not allow the swoop to rise more than three meters off the ground, this is hardly any better than a speeder or, for that matter, a Jedi starfighter. The handling is definitely worse.

I take a hairpin with a sharply banked turn. The centripetal force practically throws me off. The swoop’s sorry excuse for a seat digs painfully into my groin. It takes supreme effort not curse aloud.

“You’re a damn good pilot, General Kenobi,” Anakin used to like to say, “and you’d be an even better one if you’d just stop complaining about how much you hate it long enough to pay attention to your flight vectors.” I can practically hear his voice over the GAR-issued comlink right now.

Of course, Anakin himself would be far better still. He’s a natural, even on unfamiliar vehicles, and his Force talents only augment something that was always already there within him. Joy, laughter, and the thrill of adventure. Many beings of our mutual acquaintance found this aspect of his personality delightfully infectious. While I was careful never to admit it, I suppose I sometimes did too.

In any case, I channeled Anakin’s expert enthusiasm for all things mechanical and fast when speaking to Tamora and, along with the tiniest application of mind-touch, managed to successfully convince her to let me borrow one of the racing swoops and take it out for an impromptu unsupervised test drive.

The Twi’lek operating out of the same garage is a pretty good indication that Tamora is connected to the Hutt’s slave cartel in some fashion—I just don’t know how. As a matter of fact, she might not either. While it wouldn’t take a Force-sensitive to detect her supreme discomfort with the state of affairs, I didn’t want to waste precious minutes exploring and unpacking the details of it. I could develop some plausible theories, I’m sure, but at present, when Luke might be in danger, speculation is a waste of finite energy. Perhaps later, when I’m at leisure. And besides, if Tamora’s friendship with the Lars family is going to prove a conflict of interest with her chosen line of work, well, better for everyone concerned that her conscience remain unburdened for as long as possible.

***

By the time that I arrive in the vicinity of the Sand People’s encampment, night has fallen. The sky is a milky wash of stars, the rising moons two slender crescents hanging close to the horizon, like guillotines poised for beheadings. The location of the encampment is a vast, ancient floodplain where, untold millennia ago, a raging river once flowed, and the lines of sight from the cluster of yurts and flickering campfires are unobstructed for a dozen kilometers or more in every direction.

This isn’t going to be easy. I consider my options.

The tribe’s herd of banthas is bedded down a short distance from the encampment. They are guarded, of course, but only by a single, and probably drowsy, individual. I decide I like my chances of concealing myself amongst their hairy bulk better than any other option...particularly since the largest members of the herd typically sleep on its edges as a matter of protection. This will maximize my ability to hide from the tribe-at-large until I am quite close indeed to their encampment proper.

I make my approach on foot from the southwest, keeping the main body of the herd between me and the encampment. Although the low hum of its engines increase the risk of detection, I walk the swoop bike along with me, repulsorlift engines turned on and thrusters in neutral—I may need to make a swift getaway, so best to be prepared.

These are more banthas here than I’ve ever seen in one place before, and I know the herd to be an “unnatural” one, an aggregate of mostly unrelated individuals taken from various free-roaming feral herds. Yet they are tame, gentle, and those few cognizant enough to register my presence are supremely unconcerned. I do not even need to use the Force to calm them.

The Sand Person sentry, on the other hand, never knows what hit her.

I contemplate taking her mask and wearing it myself for concealment, but it occurs to me that if she is found thus stripped beneath the sky by her fellow tribe members she will be disgraced. Possibly exiled or executed outright. I do not wish this fate upon her and therefore leave her be, unconscious and on the ground.

As I am making my way toward the encampment, sprinting from one sleeping bantha to the next, an odd, high-pitched howling begins to rise. From my vantage point, I see what looks to be raiding party returning to the tribe in victory. There are three small prisoners in tow, roped together and hands tied behind their backs, stumbling along at the rear of the contingent. Oh stars’ end, am I too late? Has Luke been captured?

The faces of the children are in shadow; I cannot be certain. I will need to get closer. When the coast is clear, I dash quickly out from behind the herd and back against the rear of the nearest yurt. The raiding party and their prisoners should be passing right by here momentarily. Then I’ll get a good look. I duck down low so as not to be seen and rest one hand on the ground to keep my balance. My fingers sink easily into the loose sand, and without thinking I dig deep into the cool, dry grains, feeling downward for something just out of reach, intangible yet achingly familiar, seeking—

Suddenly, the entire universe as I know it falls out from under me.

***

 _< Anakin? Anakin! No!!_>

…Master Qui-Gon, is that you?

I am spinning, weightless. There is vertigo. Dizziness. I cannot feel my body, and I cannot see. There is no breath in my lungs; I cannot cry out. Where am I? What is happening to me?

Wait. I see something. Faint. It’s light. Blue light. And I can hear the plasma hum of a drawn lightsaber. No, that shouldn’t be possible. Our lightsabers are stowed safe at home beneath the false bottom of the clothes chest in my bedroom. They aren’t—

A sickening lurch, and I have been returned to the Sand People’s encampment, and all around me there is… _chaos_.

Rage, despair, hatred, and thirst for vengeance. The power of the dark side unleashed. I know this power! It’s Vader. _Darth Vader is here._

A swirl of black cloak; he’s coming. Closer. Times slows. Ever closer. I am paralyzed. Force preserve us—!

Finally, by the radiance of his blue lightsaber, I see him. This can’t be Vader. Instead, I see the slim form of a teenager yet to fully grow into his long limbs. I see the Padawan braid. No, not Vader—Anakin.

 _Anakin_ is the source of the chaos.

The Sand People are warriors, and they are brave. They shoot at him, of course, but he turns their blaster bolts back upon them, and they die under their own reflected blasterfire. Then they close in and slash at him with their gaderffii, but he simply cuts them down, two, three, even five at a time. The wounds he inflicts are invariably fatal. Heads roll; torsos are severed; vital organs are pierced. I lose count of how many die.

Eventually, there are none left who wish to chance an attack against the avenging demon-Human, and the rest try to flee. These are juveniles, the elderly, non-combatants who do not wear bandoleers, mothers with newborn babes clutched to their breasts. But he pursues them all equally, showing no mercy, and, lightsaber flashing, he takes them from behind. Their dismembered, smoking bodies never even got to look their death in the eye.

Now a youngling is running directly toward me, screaming. Anakin is right behind, leading with his lightsaber in a two-handed grip. I still cannot move. The youngling stumbles and falls to the ground mere centimeters from my feet. The blue plasma blade plunges into the center of the youngling’s back, impaling, and withdraws. The small body slumps. Anakin wheels away; he does not see me.

That could have been Emmie. The mask and wrappings and robes make it virtually indistinguishable.

He kills them all, one after another after another after another. His hate pollutes the ground; it contaminates everything about this place. For no one, not a single sentient being, has been left alive. Their deaths are a hollow howl through the Force, the vacuum of absence tearing jagged, irreparable rents into the fabric of space and time…and into my heart.

These Sand People were the A’Rathi, and they have been annihilated. Not by plague or famine, as I had previous speculated…but by fury. I feel like I might die along with them.

Finally, Anakin reappears, holding a limp body in his arms. It wears the roughspun dress of a moisture farmer’s wife, and the face is bruised and bloodied nearly beyond recognition. Shmi. Anakin’s mother. Already gone. He pays no attention to me, or to the many dead and dismembered corpses, as he passes, practically close enough to touch. His tear-streaked face is blank.

A yurt catches fire behind us, and sparks dance like lightningmoths in the wind, spreading the flames. Soon, the entire encampment is engulfed in the conflagration, an inferno stretching its hundreds of tall orange limbs up to touch the very dome of the desert sky itself and stain it crimson.

The last thing I hear are the panicked roars of stampeding bantha as even the tough stalks of sandgrass begin to catch fire.

***

Tears pour down my face in thick rivulets, falling silently into the sand. The people of Tatooine say it is a sin to cry in the desert, but I cannot make myself stop. I feel fevered and nauseous, then shivering and icy cold.

Anakin, what have you done?!

The sand reverberates with the screams of the dead. I have learned what the darkness discovered here.

Oh Anakin…

What I experienced was a psychometric flash, a vision of a traumatic collective memory of atrocity seared into the land itself. No time appears to have passed. The raiding party approaches, prisoners trailing behind. There are three Human children, boys by their haircuts and manner of dress, all roughly the same age as Luke—

But no Luke. Thank goodness for small blessings.

One Humanoid of indeterminate species and an IG-series droid are already waiting. These must be the new hires the Twi’lek mentioned. The raiding party joins them in a small, circular clearing in the middle of a tight cluster of yurts. While one of the Sand People, presumably the leader of the raiding party, confers with the Humanoid, the droid checks each of the prisoners in turn with a retinal scanner installed directly into its own single crimson cranial lens. It apparently likes what it finds; the Humanoid nods in pleasure in response to the droid’s binary chirps.

The transaction concludes. The Sand People receive their payment for goods and services rendered, and the end of rope binding the three children together is duly passed to the Humanoid. One of the children—the Darklighter boy I saw playing at the Lars farm—snarls in defiance at the exchange, and the Humanoid responds with a violent jerk of the rope that yanks all three children right off their feet and onto their knees. With their hands bound, they cannot break their falls, and the ground is unforgiving. Another child begins to sob piteously, refusing to stop even when prodded by the blunt end of a gaderffii.

This is my chance.

I am walking forward. The Force guides me, and I do not think. The inevitability of the situation is like strong acid, dissolving straight through flesh and bone, mind and spirit, until the weight of myself lifts. I am floating. Numb. Empty.

Jabba’s thugs go flying through the air, two graceful parabolic arcs that carry them out of the Sand People’s encampment entirely. The Sand People whirl about, gaderiffii and blaster rifles at the ready, seeking their new attacker. Unnoticed, the ropes binding the children seem to unknot themselves and fall slithering to the ground like dead serpents.

Everyone in the clearing can see me, but the hood of my robe is pulled low over my head, so they do not know me. I make no move to attack; I have no visible weapon. Dimly, I realize that my hands are tightly clenched, fingernails digging bloody crescents into the soft flesh of my palms. Slowly, I unclench them. Fistfuls of sand I can’t remember picking up are released—

But the grains do not scatter.

Instead, they rise, dancing, swirling, spiraling, higher and higher…and the wind rises too.

It is moaning in the voices of the murdered A’Rathi.

The Sand People hear the voices and are afraid. They bark and chatter, heads tipped upward toward the sky. The three Human children, freed from their bonds and noting their captors’ momentary distraction, run for their lives. The raiding party leader howls a furious command, ordering his other warriors to pursue, which they attempt to do, but the momentary delay caused by their confusion has cost them dearly.

For now, my cyclone is upon them.

They are nothing more than motes of dust in the wind.

I am a conduit, and I am filled. I explode with the power of the sandstorm. I _am_ the sandstorm.

Panicked shrieks rise from every corner of the Sand People’s encampment; their yurts are not built to withstand anything of this magnitude. They are rightly terrified; there had been no warning of inclement weather. They run about, gathering their younglings and what meager belongings they can, and they do not hesitate: They flee.

I stand in the storm’s eye. I _see_ through its eye: three children improbably piloting a racing swoop, well ahead of the spreading wall of sand. It will not overtake them. That is to the good.

My hood blows back, exposing my face to a scouring gale I do not feel, and the leader of the raiding party gives a start of recognition. Ah, it’s the Chieftain’s son. Courageous, he snarls and tries to charge, but he cannot run against the whirlwind, and it holds him back from me. He snarls again and lifts his blaster rifle to try and shoot, but his aim is wide, and then the Chieftain himself is there, knocking the weapon from his son’s hands and compelling him to break off his attack on me and join the tribe in retreat.

Finally, I am alone. Trapped. I do not know how long the sandstorm rages, how long the darkness— _Anakin’s_ darkness—burns through me, holding me captive within the chaos I have reaped. When dawn does arrive a lifetime later, however, the dome of the heavens is pure azure.

And I collapse beneath it.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Because we’ve always wanted to know what Anakin _actually_ did to the Sand People, amirite?
> 
> (2) Poor Obi-Wan. What a tough way to level up.
> 
> (3) It occurs to me that, in spite of the inclusion of various original(-ish) supporting characters, this story is very male. Maybe that’s why I’ve been concurrently working on an unrelated [Leia/Ahsoka femslash story](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10666908).


	15. Act Two, Scene VII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obi-Wan learns something very important about what dwells in him.

An overpowering stench reminiscent of unwashed bantha fills my nostrils.

“Ugh, Anakin, _no_ , not until you—” I mumble, turning over and trying to bury my nose protectively into the crook of my arm.

There is a hot, moist snort into my ear, and then broad, blunt teeth start nibbling my beard. I groan, rub the crusty mixture of dried tears and actual sand from my eyes, and prop myself upright on one elbow so that I may take stock of what, precisely, is molesting me when I’m just trying my damnedest to sleep.

Well, turns out it’s not just reminiscent of a bantha. It’s a _real_ bantha. And with its woolly face mere centimeters from mine, I recognize it as the yearling calf I saw taken from the local herd by Sand People.

Oh yes, right. The Sand People.

The one mounted on the yearling’s back trills an aggressive-sounding burst of syllables down at me, and I brace myself for the inevitable attack. I haven’t the strength to defend myself anymore; hopefully it will be over quickly.

To my considerable surprise, however, this Sand Person does not attack.

Instead, he is joined by the Tir’Noti Chieftain astride his own magnificent bantha Matriarch. Emmie sits on the saddle in front of the Chieftain. I am relieved to see that she is okay and still on good terms with the tribe.

“Chieftain hails you with reverence, Ben the Suns-Touched, and pleads for your forgiveness,” Emmie says, her voice filled with awe and—to my eternal sorrow—not a little fear. “His son took slaves from The Mouth without his knowledge or permission. He violated your agreement and will be punished.”

The Sand Person on the yearling calf croaks grudgingly and lowers his head in a reluctant gesture of repentance. Ah, so that’s the Chieftain’s son.

“The Tir’Noti acknowledge your domain and prior claim on the Others and Other-children residing in what you call ‘the flatlands.’ In return, Chieftain hopes that Ben the Suns-Touched will visit no further calamity upon his people,” Emmie continues.

So, it’s diplomacy again after all. I think I manage to stand up without looking too pathetic. “Thank you. I am more than happy to abide by those terms.” I do my best to sound dignified.

Without further ado, our negotiations conclude, and it’s only then that I consciously take notice of my surroundings. The Sand People’s encampment has been virtually obliterated by the storm’s violence; were it not for the occasional bit of debris here and there I would never have known it ever existed in the first place. Nonetheless, I see the beginnings of newly constructed yurts, and given the purposeful industry of the tribe members’ hustle and bustle, the encampment will be back to some semblance of normal within the week.

The Chieftain offers me a ride home, and I take it—gladly—even though the Chieftain’s son is none too thrilled to learn that I must ride with him. Perhaps because he does not yet entirely trust his son alone with me, the Chieftain himself accompanies us. Emmie comes as well.

On the journey, I make a few attempts to engage Emmie in conversation, asking after her own wellbeing, as well as the status of the other former slaves Bail’s credits freed, but she will not speak to me again. Clearly, the Tir’Noti believe that _I_ was the one who cursed and brought destruction upon the A’Rathi, and with Luke’s best interests at heart, I understand that I cannot disabuse them of their misapprehension.

***

I hurt too much to even contemplate bathing once I’m finally home.

It’s like I tried to scrub off my skin with coarse sandpaper, which isn’t, when you think about it, too far from the truth. There’s probably an exclusive spa somewhere on Coruscant charging exorbitant amounts for exactly this sort of exfoliating treatment, I tell myself as I slide with painstaking care into bed. Even so, the bantha wool blanket feels as prickly as a politician’s ego.

“ ‘Ben the Suns-Touched.’ That’s a good one.”

“I don’t know you. Go away,” I say, wrapping a pillow around my head so that I don’t have to look at him.

“Stop. You’re behaving like a youngling in the crèche,” he says, at once gentle and firm.

Well, he should know; he always _was_ the master of childish petulance. Okay, that was unworthy of me. But the thing is, I’m only saying what’s true: I _don’t_ know him anymore. I believed I did, and I was wrong.

The bed sags and creaks under his weight. A teasing hand brushes feather-light strokes up and down my chest. The heartache is more painful than my superficial injuries. And there is a tiny, residual piece of storm still inside of me, swirling chaos and darkness; it takes everything I have not to react with a dangerous excess of emotion.

“No!” I muffle my shout with the pillow and squeeze my eyes shut tight as involuntary tears begin to spill out of the corners. “Don’t touch me.”

His hand withdraws. His presence beside me does not.

What I felt was him…and it wasn’t. I do not know what will happen if he is permitted to touch this darkness as he is now; I dare not unleash my desire, no matter how much I want him.

And yes, I want him. More than anything. It would be so easy, so simple, to reach out and take him, claim him, immolate my doubts in the cleansing fire of our shared pleasure. But I can’t… _I_ _can’t_. The pain of my need does not abate, and eventually, in spite of myself, I start speaking again. “The man I love would never have done such a thing. I thought I knew you. So why, Anakin— _why_?!”

“I cannot explain that which you yourself do not understand,” he replies sadly.

It’s an evasion, not an answer, and I am not prepared to confront what that portends. In that respect, there is only one possible response:

“ _Go. Away_.”

This time, he does.

***

Anakin won the Boonta Eve Classic at the age of nine. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that the Darklighter boy and his two friends were able to ride a top-of-the-line racing swoop to safety ahead of what locals have taken to calling the Sandstorm of the Century. Although centered on the Jundland Wastes, where its effects were most destructive, winds dumped half a meter of sand on Bestine and temporarily halted all offplanet travel as far distant as Mos Eisley. This _is_ the time of year that sandstorms are at their most fierce and frequent, though, so nobody save the Sand People suspect my involvement, and nobody save other Sand People discuss the weather with Sand People.

The locals _have_ figured out, however, that Ben Kenobi was the one to borrow a racing swoop and then “absentmindedly” abandon it amidst a herd of bantha. Of course, they chuckle, silly, _crazy_ old Ben would be precisely the sort to be hanging out with some random bantha herd when the mother of all sandstorms is practically on top of him. (It never occurs to them to ask how I managed to survive; I guess they assume that desert hermits, like womp rats, are nigh indestructible in their natural habitat.) Still, all’s well that ends well, they say; the children were saved, and the racing swoop was returned to its garage with nary a scratch.

Even so, I’ve been avoiding Anchorhead and the inevitable awkward questions of nosy moisture farmers, and another trip to Mos Espa is out of the question for the foreseeable future.

Fortunately, I have plenty to keep me occupied right here at home. Like cooking and cleaning. Doing laundry.

I hear the trumpeterflute snoring before I see it. Somehow, the dewback found its way to freedom from where I’d abandoned it in Mos Espa, and now it’s sound asleep in my eopie stable and blocking my access to the dry cleaning machine. I’m too emotionally anesthetized to be shocked by its return. Really, I ought to get rid of it properly. Someone acquainted with its previous owner might still recognize it and link me to his death.

Against my better judgment, I provide it fresh water and food. Dewbacks subsist wholly on native lichens which grow on cliffs at high altitude. Processed lichen pellets are available for bulk sale all over Tatooine—who would have guessed?

If I continue feeding it, it’ll never leave me in peace. I must be a fool. A complete and utter fool.

***

“Hey, Obi-Wan, is your new dewback a ‘he’ or a ‘she’?”

“No idea.”

“Ah, so that explains why you haven’t given it a name.”

I do not respond. These vegetables aren’t going to peel, dice, or pickle themselves, and it has been quite awhile since I’ve restocked my larder. Slicing and chopping have their own calming rhythm, a sort of moving meditation. Food preparation helps clear my mind and keep my focus off of things I’d rather not think about.

His arms wrap themselves around my waist from behind. I yearn to lean back into the embrace, to turn my head and allow his lips to touch mine, to surrender to the comfort of uncomplicated passion. It would be easy, so very, very easy to go on pretending.

Instead, I stiffen and ignore him.

“Leave me alone,” I say. This may have been more persuasive if it hadn’t come out sounding less like a command and more like a sob.

“No,” he murmurs. There is so much sweet tenderness in his voice. “You know that’s not truly what you want.”

He’s right, though I won’t admit it, and I’m not deceiving anyone, least of all myself. We are closer than brothers or the dearest of lovers. We are flesh of flesh, spirit of spirit. A dull ache blooms in my chest, like all of the air is being stolen from my lungs, and I don’t trust myself enough to speak again.

“C’mon, the food’ll keep. You’ve been working awfully hard. Let’s have some fun.” One of his hands drifts downward to cup my groin suggestively. I can feel his thickening hardness in the small of my back, and my body begins to respond automatically to the sensual heat. My paring knife drops with a clatter onto the counter, forgotten, and he murmurs encouragement, irresistible eroticism.

But my mind recoils, and I’m starting to think the unthinkable again. We haven’t made love since the night before Emmie arrived with the Sullustan’s dewback, and I have been rebuffing his overtures ever since. I cannot, _will not_ , reconcile what I know of the man who wiped an entire tribe of Sand People from the face of Tatooine with what I feel about this man with whom I have been sharing my bed these past seven years—they cannot possibly be one and the same.

And that, really, points to one inescapable conclusion.

I am as still and silent as a statue. If I act like I am alone…

Eventually, he takes the hint. “All right, Obi-Wan, all right. You win. If you want me, I’ll be outside working on the vaporator.”

“No, you won’t,” I whisper.

We can’t possibly go on like this…can we?

***

The light of the lonely yellow sun is wan and distant, and the chill of the stone floor beneath the thin sleeping pallet is seeping straight into my bones. I shiver and tuck my prone body into a tighter ball. Somehow, it has become impossible for me to get warm—

“Obi-Wan.”

“Master Qui-Gon!” I sit bolt upright and try, admittedly without much success, to compose myself. I’m still shivering.

“Come and walk with me,” Qui-Gon says, patient and kind. “It will warm you up. The Padawans’ cells are always cold at this time of the year.”

The Padawans’ cells—?! I blink, taken aback, and notice my surroundings. I am in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, in the private sleeping quarters allocated to me throughout my years as Qui-Gon’s apprentice. Every Padawan learner of similar biological conformation to mine occupied an identical cell, including Qui-Gon himself during his years under Dooku. Of course he’d be familiar with their characteristics and particular quirks.

“Exercise is the answer, not extra blankets. I would have thought you had learned that long ago. Perhaps it is good that we revisit these early lessons,” he says with a faint, but indulgent, smile.

“Indeed,” I agree, stroking my chin.

Something is different. I am shocked again when I realize that my face is clean-shaven. “What—?!”

Qui-Gon chuckles and tugs the long, thin braid thrown over my shoulder forward toward him. “Come, young one. We can talk further on the way to the gardens.”

I’m asking a barrage of questions as soon as we step out into the corridor. “Why do I look half my age? Why hasn’t this ever happened before? Did _you_ do something to me?”

“In this place, immanent desires are made manifest. The years I worked to train you were the happiest of my life. You appear as you do because the uncertainty you are feeling has allowed my will to take precedence over your own,” Qui-Gon says.

As usual, I don’t really comprehend most of what he has told me. I do, however, pick up on one important thing: He knows my feelings. And also—

“You knew about what Anakin did on Tatooine,” I accuse him. “The sands held the sound of your voice.”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?!” A stupid question—back then Qui-Gon had no real way of communicating with me—but I give vent to my frustrations anyway, and my voice rises shrilly. “No one who had willingly drawn so deeply on the dark side should have been elevated to Knighthood. Had I known about this back then, maybe I could have prevented Anakin’s fall and the destruction he wrought upon the Order—!”

Grief blossoms in my throat like a poisonous flower, and I choke back my cry. I am making a spectacle of myself, and other Jedi are starting to notice. To calm myself, I study the various beings around us. Some, whom I recognize, incline their heads slightly in my direction as we pass, but most are unfamiliar. I can tell, though, that Qui-Gon knows them all.

“This feels so real,” I say. “A shame it isn’t.”

“Did I ever tell you it isn’t?” Qui-Gon asks curiously.

We are in the gardens now, beneath Qui-Gon’s favorite halspren tree. It wears glorious autumnal colors, and we both gaze up into its vast canopy.

“Consider this tree,” he instructs. “No matter how magnificent it may be, can one tree ever constitute a living forest?”

“Err, no. A living forest implies a dynamic ecosystem comprising multiple trees and associated taxa,” I reply. I’m reasonably certain of my answer in this instance.

“Tell me how this insight relates to you and Anakin.”

“I beg your pardon?” I’m lost.

“How are you and Anakin like the tree and the forest?”

“Err…I guess we’re both individual trees, and the Empire, or maybe the whole galaxy, is the forest?”

Qui-Gon gives a short shake of his head. “What if I said that _you_ , Obi-Wan, are the forest, and your Anakin is a single tree within it?”’

“So he’s not real, no more than this Temple or the Jedi in it apart from you and me. I knew it.” I should be fuming, but instead I’m just numb.

“What is real?” Not _that_ question again! But Qui-Gon isn’t finished. “Is the mind less real than the body? The residue Anakin’s power left on Tatooine is vanishingly faint. Yet you channeled and amplified it in the spectacular manner you did _because_ he already dwells in you.”

“I was receptive, in other words, like a comlink auto-tuned to the right frequency.” Now I’m speaking without hesitation. “It was _dark_ power, Master. If I continue to accept the truth of what he was— _is_ —into me…”

“We contain multitudes. The forest is still a forest without one tree. Will you uproot it? That choice is yours to make.”

 

TO BE CONTINUED

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Poor Obi-Wan again. Will he give up his lover in order to purge himself of the dark side? 
> 
> (2) The original idea for “What Dwells in Us” predates “[Mother](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8673940),” but I ended up writing the latter first. Those who have read/are reading both may notice certain similarities between the respective psychological torments Obi-Wan experiences. Although I’ve made some adjustments of emphasis here, that’s not a coincidence: Some of what shows up in “Mother” was originally meant for this story. 
> 
> (3) I’m a big fan of an affectionate—but not necessarily romantic— _functional_ relationship between Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. I don’t buy the idea, going all the way back to 1999, that Obi-Wan would have been somehow jealous/resentful of Qui-Gon’s interest in Anakin, which isn’t very “Jedi-like,” or, conversely, that Qui-Gon messed up Obi-Wan’s development in some dire fashion. 
> 
> (4) By the way, did you know that the first person ever to publish a Qui/Obi story online passed away approximately a decade after writing that fic? It was untimely and tragic. My point? I’m not sure, really. But for the grace of God, as they say…


	16. Act Two, Scene VIII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luke’s first day at school.

The two children are unsuspicious and simplicity itself to shadow through the bustling morning streets of Anchorhead. I wasn’t planning on eavesdropping on their chatter, but when Luke and the Darklighter boy pass me in the market, thick as thieves, on the way to their first day of school, I find I can’t resist.

Bartering to cover my everyday requirements has become second nature. With one ear fixed keenly on the children, I conclude the transaction as quickly as possible. “My thanks—I haven’t even smelled Mirialan barknut flour in years! Do you mind if I come back for pickup in the afternoon?” I ask.

“Not a problem. I’ll hold these for you,” the greengrocer replies, noting my interest in the boys with a speculative gleam in his eyes but not otherwise commenting on it. Then he adds, “Always a pleasure doing business with you, Ben. Nothing tastes like fresh wild milk after the end of the dry season!”

I nod absentmindedly, fold my hands into the sleeves of my robe, and take my leave. It is easy to catch up with the boys—it is early yet, and they are in no particular hurry. I feel a distinct pang, watching the back of Luke’s blond-haired head bob in and out of the street crowd; he looks and sounds so much like his father at a similar age.

“—wish I could have been there, Biggs! I’ve never even _seen_ a racing swoop!” Luke is saying, voice so saturated with awe that it is approaching outright hero-worship. “Uncle Owen just _had_ to pick that day to realign the vaporators in the eastern quadrant. We were working on them past sunsdown. He’s such a hard-ass.”

“Dad couldn’t believe we made it out of the Wastes all in one piece! It was totally awesome. I wish I could’ve kept it, but apparently it’s worth more than half the farm,” the Darklighter boy, Biggs, says with a heavy sigh.

“It got taken back to Mos Espa?”

“Yeah. Gonna be entered into the race for the first time in two weeks. A favorite to win!”

“Uncle Owen doesn’t let me follow the races,” Luke mutters glumly. Hmm, why am I not surprised?

“That’s too bad. Hey, did you know there used to be a podracer named Skywalker? I saw the name on a list of winners at the Mos Espa arena. Tamora gave us a tour.”

“No. But that’s probably why we don’t follow the races. Doesn’t want me getting any bright ideas,” Luke says, growing more despondent. I’m mildly surprised he doesn’t make the obvious connection to his father, but then goodness only knows what Owen has told Luke about Anakin’s past.

“Oh.” Biggs pauses, shoots Luke a sympathetic glance, and then brightens. “Hey, did I tell you? Mom says I’m old enough now to start learning to pilot the skyhopper. Why don’t you come over later and try it out with me?” he suggests.

“Really?! Your parents would let me?!” Ah, now Luke is bouncing up and down with excitement.

“Sure. Just don’t tell that poodoo uncle of yours. I’m guessing he wouldn’t like it…”

The two boys have arrived at their destination. They disappear into the school’s courtyard, and soon I can no longer hear their conversation.

I chuckle to myself as I head toward the nearby cantina. Apparently Owen’s “hard-ass” reputation has become well-established even amongst the local children, and he’s still hard at work keeping Luke both from flying and from the Force. Unfortunately for him, my instincts tell me that he is not going to succeed…at least when it comes to flying and if Biggs Darklighter has anything to do with it. Luke may grow up to be a son his father will be proud of after all.

The cantina has only just opened for the day, and I have the rooftop veranda entirely to myself. It won’t start to fill until lunchtime, so I settle in for a slow breakfast of hot seared grain, treacle paste, and caf with a splash of kumis and watch as teachers herd the children congregating outside the little adobe schoolhouse into two rough queues.

One of the queues consists of entirely of older children, presumably with a prior record of attendance at the school. A teacher stands at the head of the queue, wielding a retinal scanner that she uses on each child in turn. After each satisfactory beep, the child is allowed inside. There is only one child who elicits a protesting buzz from the scanner. He is immediately sent to the rear of the second queue.

The second queue, which includes Luke and Biggs, must be for new enrollees, and a municipal government official from Bestine is busily taking each child’s fingerprints and retinal scans. If there were any Non-Humans, they’d be subject to full DNA scans as well, I’m sure, but this school is for Humans exclusively, and for the Human species there are certain additional privileges under Imperial rule.

I hold my breath when it’s Luke’s turn to be scanned. For seven years, I successfully prevented his official entry onto the Imperial subject rosters, and the Empire had no record of his existence. Now, with a few routine swipes on the interactive screen of a datapad, that time has ended.

The whole procedure takes less than a minute, and as Luke joins his classmates inside the schoolhouse, I release the breath I was holding. Sooner or later, I may have to take further active measures to protect Luke from the overbearing eye of Imperial surveillance and possibly to counteract inevitable indoctrination. But for now I find that I feel mildly relieved: No Human child recorded as an Imperial subject is going to end up enslaved. While I continue to believe that Owen is making a terrible mistake in not allowing me to train Luke, enrolling him at school may well prove to be a blessing in disguise.

This insight occurred to me only after the fact, while reflecting upon what I had seen that night several months ago in the Sand People’s encampment. One reason we decided to place Luke with the Lars family is that settlers on Tatooine were not historically regarded as citizens of the Republic. This meant that, officially, they did not exist in the records…and indeed many beings relocated to this and similar recently colonized worlds in order to escape their troubled pasts.

The rise of the Empire has changed all that, and now each and every system in the known galaxy and every sentient being within it is an Imperial subject. Nowadays, only the young children of settlers inhabiting remote areas of Tatooine have not been formally identified, and it just so happens that these are precisely the sort of children that the Sand People, purely on the basis of proximity, are most likely to capture and enslave. Somehow, the Hutt’s criminal network figured out that the procurement and sale of these unidentified Human children represented an excellent business opportunity—slavery is illegal, _unless_ the slave in question was already enslaved prior to Imperial annexation of the slave’s homeworld. Without government identification, it would be impossible to prove definitively that young children such as Luke and his friend Biggs were freeborn, not slaves.

So, school means protection from slavery but increased risk of detection by the Empire…and the Emperor. In the end, it’s a tradeoff. I’m starting to think that everything will be like that from now on.

***

Evening meditation on the Dune Sea.

There are no gardens and no trees here, but I do not need them to understand Master Qui-Gon’s lesson anymore. Everything I need for that—and everything I should desire—is right here before me, but a short distance from home. The desert is my garden.

The desert is me. I am of the desert. I _am_ the desert. I am the dewback sunning herself in the last light of day before returning, or not, to a stable that was never meant for her. I am the thicket of underground roots of the sandgrass fields; I am Nara; I am the bantha Matriarch and her herd; I am the krayt dragons which seek to gorge on fresh bantha meat; and I am the newborn bantha calves, some of whom will one day serve as honored mounts for Sand People like Emmie. I am the desert travelers, the Sand People themselves, and all of the other beings who come here to live, die, forget, and remember. I am the desert hermit Ben Kenobi who is pledged in sacred service to the future. I am each and every minute grain of sand.

Truly, we contain multitudes. _How_ everything is connected, that is nigh unknowable, the project of a trillion Human lifetimes. But to understand that everything is connected, this is an easier path, for _this_ is the almighty Force which binds the universe. The countless lives which did and do and will someday touch mine comprise who I am, and I in turn dwell in the countless others my life did and does and will someday touch. The individual is but a convenient fiction, selfhood but a trick of the mind’s eye. We are not threads in the tapestry of life; rather, we exist in the pattern and technique of its weaving.

A hundred-thousand grains of sands rise around me and begin to swirl. Like an eight-armed pinwheel they turn in perfect unison, and the small grains orbit larger ones, and grains smaller still orbit those small ones. Here is Coruscant, circling close to my head, sinister lines of coercive power linking it to every other living planet. Over there is Tatooine, the planet and its binary stars clinging to the outer edge of one long arm. These tiny celestial bodies, they vibrate and sing, and as the wheel spins faster, faster, _faster_ , they begin to heat and glow. This is the dance of the universe, and it will go on forever.

The Force is me. I am of the Force. I _am_ the Force.

_< Well done, Obi-Wan.>_

It is over an hour before the sand falls back onto the dunes.

***

He is sprawled sideways and snoring, the bedclothes hopelessly twisted around his legs. I approach the bed, silent as a stalking nexu and, in the remains of the day, admire the sculpted lines of light and shadow of his sleeping form.

He is thirty years old now, and age has only enhanced his beauty. The callowness of uncertain youth has been replaced by the easy elegance of confident maturity, and he is broader, stronger, more exquisitely developed. But traces of softness remain; his long eyelashes flutter like an insect’s translucent wings, and his lips are soft and full. Those lips part reflexively, quick flash of pink tongue behind white teeth, sensing me even in unconsciousness, as I join him on the bed.

His genitals lie exposed in their tender repose, framed by a fine nest of protective hair. I stroke those coarse strands, comb my fingers deeply through their tangles, and bring my face in close to nuzzle him and breathe his familiar scent. I press a kiss to the wrinkled tip of his foreskin.

“Mmm… Hey there,” he murmurs, appreciative, starting to wake. The sound is almost a croak; his voice is endearingly low and hoarse from lack of recent use.

“Hey yourself,” I say, and then I retract his foreskin and press a second kiss on the exposed glans.

He sighs happily and raises his hips in invitation. I oblige, cradling his scrotum in one hand and holding the thickening length of him steady in the other as I take him into my mouth. I enjoy him slowly, teasing so that the tension builds only gradually. But eventually he is tossing and writhing and leaking salty-sweet pleasure onto my tongue, and he urges my body around so that he can reciprocate.

I oblige him again, and he immediately swallows me as deeply as he can, moaning his enthusiasm and hunger and seeming to ignite every nerve in my body with his inner fire. I gasp and arch and temporarily lose my rhythm. Encouraged by my reaction, he slides one hand from my shoulder blades down to the base of my spine and lower still, fingers sliding into me, exploring, seeking the little, swollen lump that will make me come.

I resist this tortuous simulation for as long as I can, but the ardent need he kindles in me is wild, demanding, irresistible, and before long I am wailing and flooding his mouth with my semen. He comes too with a single, explosive thrust straight down my throat, and I am satiated, replete, full of the heat of his ecstasy.

Afterwards, we rest our heads against each other’s hips, euphoric and adrift. I tremble and clutch at him tightly. “I love you so much,” I whimper. “I can’t lose you. Not now. Not yet.” He is me, and what’s between us does not matter.

“I’m yours, Obi-Wan, yours, for as long as you’ll have me,” he says, soothing. We are one. It has to be enough.

As night’s shroud covers us in pitch black, Anakin’s body remains vital and warm against mine, and we sleep.

 

END ACT TWO; TO BE CONTINUED

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Okay, time to take stock: What do you think thus far? Good? Bad? WTF? ;-) There is at least one more Act to go, more than one if you feel strongly about seeing this story link up with events of the OT…


	17. Act Three, Scene I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obi-Wan has been on Tatooine for thirteen years, and change, it seems, may be coming fast. 
> 
> But first, yet another (most) unexpected visitor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A new act begins. I hope you like it!

**[G]ive us courage to change what must be altered, serenity to accept what cannot be helped, and insight to know the one from the other.**

**–** **Winnifred Crane Wygal, also attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr**

 

Fallen leaves, shriveled and brown, carpet the ground beneath Qui-Gon’s beloved halspren tree. They lay lightly because, for now, the air is still, and they crunch and snap with every tiny shift of my feet. The sound could almost be a voice, promising of the winter yet to come.

Inhaling deeply and savoring that slight bite of chill on the inside of my nostrils, I lift my gaze upward and map the fractal patterns of growth of silvery branches that appear black when silhouetted against the evening sky. The vision is stark. So beautiful. Sometimes I wish I could abide here forever.

Was this tree destroyed during the burning of the Temple? Maybe, maybe not. Halspren wood doesn’t burn easily, but when it does burn, it burns _hot_. I am saddened to realize that I do not remember. Indeed, it’s quite possible that I never even knew. Grief clarifies our priorities while blinding us to everything else; I was too consumed by the greater, immediate consequences of Anakin’s betrayal to note the fate of a single tree.

“Do you feel it, Obi-Wan?”

I turn. Qui-Gon stands behind me, but he does not look in my direction. Instead, he too is gazing intently up into the branches of the halspren tree. What does he see, I wonder? Do we share the same experiences, the same sensations?

Qui-Gon calls this place the Netherworld of the Force. I do not pretend to fully understand its rules, and his name for it, if I’m honest, is deceptive. Whenever I hear the word “netherworld,” I cannot help but associate it with myth and folktales and crèche stories told to instruct and entertain younglings…such as The Fish Who Fell in Love with the Sun. (That one is a perennial favorite, but I never liked it for some reason.) Besides, the Netherworld of the Force doesn’t even rate as a place, not really; it is, more accurately, a difference in perception, the simultaneous co-existence of two seemingly contradictory states of being.

“The electron is both particle and wave. Solid matter is mostly empty space,” Qui-Gon remarks, echoing my thoughts aloud.

“Yes, Master,” I say. Best, always, just to agree whenever my own insight leaves something to be desired.

His thin lips twist into a faint, but indulgent smile. “You know, but you do not _feel_.”

“No, Master.” I sigh. Oh well. I never could fool him.

We step out from underneath the halspren tree, picking a path at random and strolling, side by side, in leisurely, measured steps. I concentrate on my breathing and quiet my mind. Qui-Gon accepts my silence without comment and does not attempt to test it.

Suddenly, I have a premonition. Dark and foreboding. Powerful. Something is… _wrong_. I flinch, but Qui-Gon places a strong, steady hand on my shoulder, and with the practice of long years, I manage to center and empty myself of anxiety.

Finally, when I am ready, he speaks with uncharacteristic urgency: “Time is running short, and change is coming. You must complete the next step of your training—and soon.” Qui-Gon seems about to say more, but then he pauses, frozen, head cocked. “Do you feel _that_ , Obi-Wan?”

“I don’t—” I begin, hesitating. “No, wait. Something…” Yes, I feel a disturbance, a presence. Dark? But also light? Wait, is there more than one…?

A howling, frigid gust of wind knocks me off my feet. I stumble forward, falling hard on hands and knees to the rough, unforgiving stone cobbles of the garden path. “What the—?! Oh stars above—” I grumble. I’m not as young as I used to be, and that definitely hurt.

By the time I’ve stood up, picked the grit out from the soft flesh of my palms, and straightened my robes, Qui-Gon has disappeared. “Master?” I call out and wait. No response. I am alone. Peering into the gathering darkness, I might as well be blind.

_< Wake now.>_

I do.

***

The hottest part of the day is past. Now, shadows lengthen like outspread fingers across the dunes. Tatooine’s twin suns are setting, and the sky is awash in glorious color. In my thirteen long years here, I have never grown tired this spectacle. I don’t think I ever will.

Nara has just taken her mother’s place as the new Matriarch. I know planetary monarchies which would envy the ease of the succession: The old Matriarch passed away sometime during the heat of the day, and I lifted my macrobinoculars this evening to see Nara leading her herd to rest and shelter for the night. There is no visible evidence of infighting between any of the banthas or injury upon their bodies.

In a way, though, this is the end of an era. The Matriarch with her one broken horn has been a veritable fixture of the local bantha herd occupying this little corner of the Jundland Wastes. She was an effective leader too—despite diminishing natural resources, increased pressure from krayt dragon predation, and calves taken at regular intervals by Sand People, the herd has grown from twenty-three to over forty individuals.

Moreover, this Matriarch was a survivor of the massacre of the A’Rathi. I saw her once in a vision, fleeing the killing flames.

“So? All that means is that you have _me_ to thank for your many bantha friends. From a certain point of view, that is,” Anakin remarks sarcastically, trying—and in my humble opinion _failing_ —to imitate my habit of speech.

“I’d trade a hundred bantha herds for the sentient lives you took,” I retort.

“Too bad it wasn’t up to you.”

I sigh. The terrible secret of what the darkness discovered in the desert will burden me for the rest of my days. I am impure, unclean; my spirit struggles against the constant buffeting of the storm even still. However, it, _he_ , can only drive out those last, redemptive vestiges of light if I give my consent. “Must we re-litigate these old arguments tonight? I may not approve of all of the choices you’ve made in your life, but I love and forgive you.”

“Like you love and forgive Maul for killing your girlfriend—whatshername?—Satine?”

“I have no quarrel with Maul, and the Duchess Satine was never my ‘girlfriend’…as you well know. She was a childhood crush who became an important ally, and friend, during the war. Your jealousy is as unbecoming as ever.”

She died in my arms, words of love on her lips. Yes. It feels like a lifetime ago, watching the life fade from behind Satine’s eyes. That particular grief, that pain of loss, has become less a memory than a story I tell myself on those occasions this desert solitude becomes suffocating. What I tell Anakin, however, is also true: I do not seek revenge. Not now…and not back then either. It never even occurred to me.

We differ fundamentally in that respect, him and me. I reserve my sorrow for the living, for those who have been left behind. He, conversely, has always been compelled to respond to death with more death, to kill, and that power to take what has been taken from you can be intoxicating. This is what Shmi’s death in the Sand People’s encampment taught me. It was not an easy lesson. Had I learned it earlier, perhaps I would not have failed him again and again.

I refuse to mention his secret marriage to Padmé Amidala and his inadvertent role in her demise. _That_ pain is still too close, too raw, and I am living with the legacy of his poor decisions each and every day. My eyes—and my thoughts—linger in the direction of the Lars farm. Luke, a teenager already…

Anakin drapes his arms over my shoulders from behind and nuzzles behind my ear. “Okay, old man, I believe you. I’m sorry,” he concedes. When I grasp his hands with my own, he squeezes them back, a peace offering, and we lean into each other, finding solace in the familiarity of mutual affection.

Far up in the highlands, a krayt dragon roars. The predators are awakening. “Sounds like there will be krayts on the hunt soon,” I say. “Let’s go inside, shall we?”

***

He joins me in the refresher whilst I’m bathing. My joints always seem to ache these days, and I’m squatted down on the refresher’s low stool, massaging the stiffness out from behind my knees and grumbling to myself about my earlier fall in the Temple garden. Age brings wisdom, but it also brings arthritis; the costs incurred from the near-constant physical exertion of my youth, it seems, are finally in collections.

“Here. Let me,” Anakin says as he kneels down on the floor in front of me. He grabs the open bottle of bathing oil and an exfoliating stone and begins washing my right foot. He is thorough, lavishing attention on each toe and the sole of the foot before moving back towards the heel and on to the ankle. He then alternately scrubs and massages up my leg, all the way to where it meets hip and groin. He then repeats the process, with the same exquisite, exacting slowness, on the opposite leg. By the time it’s done, I’m practically purring with pleasure.

“Thank you, Anakin. That was wonderful,” I tell him. “Alas, it seems that I really am an ‘old man,’ ” I add.

“Mmm. You know your hair’s gone almost entirely gray?” Anakin lifts his body slightly so that he can rake his fingers through my hair and brush errant, flyaway strands off my forehead. “Your beard too,” he adds, smoothing the bristles at my jawline. Then he runs the palms of his hands down my neck and chest, grazing my nipples as he goes, a pair of mirrored, sensuous caresses. His hands meet and come to a stop just above my genitals. “You’re still mostly red down here, though. Why is that?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea—” I begin.

He tugs on my pubic hair so hard that he forces me to shift forward, nearly off of the stool altogether, so that he doesn’t rip any of the coarse strands out.

“Ouch—! Hey—!” I squawk in protest, trying to bat his hands away.

But he’s having none of that. He tugs again, a mischievous warning, and laughs at what must be the scandalized expression on my face when a few hairs, caught between his fingers, are torn out roots and all. He flashes me a bright smile and flicks the hairs—which do indeed look red, not gray—aside. His eyes are dark and smoky with desire as he gazes into mine.  

“C’mon, Obi-Wan.” Anakin’s voice has become distinctly low, urgent, and hungry. “It’s time for bed, and I want you.”

I want him as well.

I rise, the pain in my knees momentarily forgotten, and follow him swiftly into the bedroom. He is perfection from behind; I adore the subtle play of light and darkness on the muscles and sinews of his back and buttocks. The pit of my stomach feels swollen with arousal. Yes, it’s quite possible that I want him more than he wants me.

***

I have more control than I did in the early days of my training. And so, although I like being older and the many social advantages advanced age confers, we do not make love as old men. Or I don’t. Anakin, at thirty-six years old, remains in his prime.

Perhaps because today has involved one too many yanks on my body hair, I am as I was before I decided to grow a beard, in the years immediately after Qui-Gon’s passing. Anakin chortles with delight when he feels my bare upper lip and rains warm kisses in a circular pattern around my mouth as we grapple and roll playfully beneath the bedclothes. When I’m like this, nothing hurts. I rejoice. We are face to face, chest to chest, heart to heart, and our legs tangle as we rock and grind against each other.

“I love you.” For the life of me, I don’t know which of us said those words.

It’s hot and sweet at first, a bit like floating. Gradually, though, the pace quickens, and our movements become more determined, more needy. He chuckles, lips wet against the hollow of my throat, and flips me onto my back so that he is on top and pressing me heavily down into the mattress. Our bodies fit together so tightly, so perfectly, that by the time he has wiggled and wormed his hand between us to grasp our erections, the tension is nigh unbearable, and I am already perilously close to climax.

“Let go,” he murmurs.

I keen and stiffen against him, my back arching as I spill myself, lifting both of us clear of the bed as I am buffeted by surge after surge after surge of annihilating pleasure. As I fall back down to earth, both proverbially and literally, I can feel him, hard and leaking and prodding my inner thigh. I smile and close my legs around him; he’s trapped.

“Got you,” I say, teasing. My arms twine around his waist, and my fingers massage the sharp edges of his shoulder blades.

“Heh. That’s what _you_ think!” His eyes glint dangerously, and he begins to thrust into the channel formed by my thighs, fast and vigorous. He grunts, and it’s guttural, animal. He’s about to succumb—

“Uhh…h-hello? Hello?? Is anybody t-there?!”

An intruder in my home! Anakin lets fly a string of muttered curses and levers himself upright out of bed. I attempt to sit up too, but I’m still boneless and quivering from the intensity of my orgasm. Anakin shakes his head and restrains me tenderly. “I’ll check it out,” he says. “You stay here.” He’s about to exit the bedroom, but I clear my throat and stare pointedly at his thick erection, red and unsatisfied. He mutters another choice expletive and, grudgingly, wraps a bantha wool blanket around his waist.

The sound of a three-and-a-half-second scuffle issues from the main living area. Then a crash, a youthful shriek, and a characteristic indrawn hiss of disapproval through the teeth that Human parents on Tatooine use when chastising wayward children.

“Luke,” I can hear Anakin saying. “Why are you here?”

 

TO BE CONTINUED

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) The quotation at the beginning of this chapter is an early variant text (circa 1933) of the Serenity Prayer.
> 
> (2) “The Fish Who Fell in Love with the Sun” – This is an oblique reference to a prospective story set in the same fanfictional universe as “What Dwells in Us” that focuses on the hours between Anakin’s dismemberment on Mustafar and his cyborg rebirth. It would be told from Palpatine’s POV, and it’s one of the earliest story ideas I ever had, but I’ve never gotten around to writing it for some reason. Any interest? (No, probably not…) 
> 
> (3) I really ought to change this fic’s overall summary, but I’m too close to it and can’t think of anything better. Any ideas, perchance?
> 
> (4) Okay, I’m curious: Does anybody know if there was Obi-Wan/Vader or Obi-Wan/Anakin slash prior to the release of the Prequel Trilogy? You’d think there ought to have been, but it would’ve been in print zines and thus difficult to verify one way or the other now. The single oldest Obi-Wan/Anakin fanfic I’ve ever seen online dates back to 1999 and the TPM-fandom era (and no, it’s not on AO3).


	18. Act Three, Scene II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luke’s appearance precipitates an unexpected turn of events for Obi-Wan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nota Bene: My new Luke/Obi-Wan story, “[The Sweetest Days](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11553531),” emphatically does _not_ take place in the same fanfictional universe as “What Dwells in Us,” but I do hope some of you will enjoy it anyway!
> 
> I have also made some significant additions to the second section of the previous chapter, including one new endnote, since this story was last updated. Please do let me know what you think. :-)

After the shock comes the panic. Frantically, I rub my hands over my head and face, but my flesh is firm and clean-shaven, and my hair is short and thick. I am still a young man, still naked and cowering like an utter fool in my bed, and this means that I am still in my dream…I think.

What is real? Have I erred in going too deep, in staying too long? Am I even capable of telling the difference anymore? Oh stars, Master Qui-Gon, what is happening to me—?!

“I wanna come with you, Father! Why don’t you ever let me come? I don’t understaaaand!” Luke is saying, his voice pitched to a high, petulant whine.

“Now, Luke, son, you know I can’t allow that,” I hear Anakin reply, all reason and patience. “Spice-running is a risky business at the best of times, but lately our eminent Governor Tarkin has made the situation for independent contractors like myself downright dangerous. Stay with your Aunt and Uncle, where I can be assured you’ll be safe.”

“No, Father! _Please_! I can help you!” Well, the boy is nothing if not persistent, and the prospect of danger only increases his stubbornness. Like father, like son.

“I said no,” Anakin reminds him firmly. He is being every centimeter as unmoving—like father, like son indeed. But then his tone softens. “I’m very sorry, my son. I know we haven’t been spending as much time together lately as we should. But we’re scheduled for lift-off within the hour, and preflight checks haven’t been completed yet, so I really don’t have time to chat. Besides, aren’t you supposed to be at school today? Does anyone know you’re here?”

Wait. Where is “here”…?

My bed, and indeed my entire bedroom, has disappeared. I am, I realize with perhaps less surprise than I ought to be feeling, currently standing in the corner of a dilapidated Mos Eisley spaceport. I look down at myself; I am wearing the rumpled, rakish togs of a veteran spacer, and there are—here I must forcibly suppress a sigh at the exasperating inevitability of it all—three wholesale packages of medical-grade spice in my arms.

“—and you’re always away for such a long time. I miss you when you’re gone.” My attention returns to what Luke is saying to Anakin. His whining is starting sound more like sorrowful whimpering. Oh dear…

An old but large and well-maintained Kuati freighter looms directly overhead. The loading ramp is down; it must be our ship. I clear my throat loudly and step into view. “This is the last of the cargo—” I begin.

I halt as Luke and Anakin turn to regard me, shocked beyond measure yet again. Luke is the boy I know and watch over from afar, scrawny and underdeveloped still at thirteen years old. Anakin, though, is virtually unrecognizable: broad and grizzled and with three times more hair on his face than his head. In fact, he’s almost _fat_! I have to clamp my jaw shut to keep from laughing aloud.

Those beautiful blue eyes beneath heavy, beetled brows are my Anakin’s, though, and they acknowledge the significant look I shoot in his direction with the instinctive understanding of our decades-long companionship.

“I have to go,” he says apologetically. “Tell you what— We’ll detour to Malastare on the return leg, and I’ll bring you a souvenir. How does that sound? Is there anything specifically you’d like?”

Luke responds to the offer with a radiant smile and an excited little hop; he knows exactly what he wants. “How about a backup pod engine ignition switch? Merl Tosche said that we—”

“Done,” Anakin interrupts Luke before he can launch into what is obviously going to be a longwinded, exuberant disquisition on pods and podracing. “Now, give your father a hug goodbye,” he commands.

Luke obeys immediately, wrapping his thin arms around Anakin’s ample waist in a needy, desperate embrace. “I love you, Father,” he whispers, face buried against Anakin’s chest.

Anakin clutches Luke almost convulsively, nuzzling and pressing adoring kisses to the top of Luke’s blond head. “I love you too, Luke,” he says. They are frozen in place like that for an age, a perfect picture of love and devotion.

The purity, the profundity, of Luke’s joy is a swell of celestial music in the Force.

Again, I clear my throat. It has to be done, but interrupting this scene makes me feel like bantha poodoo regardless.

Taking my none-too-subtle hint at last, Anakin ends the hug but keeps his hands on Luke’s shoulders, stepping backwards and holding him at arms’ length. He’s put on a brave face, but secretly, I know, he’s going to miss his son as much as the son is going to miss his father. “Now, go on; you have to hurry. You want to be back at the farm before Beru discovers you’ve gone, don’t you?”

Luke nods and sniffles, swiping gamely at his eyes with the knuckles of one rather grubby hand, and, without another word, sprints off toward the spaceport exit. I feel the weight of his disappointment in my chest like it’s my own, and I’m opening my mouth to call out and taking a half-step toward the exit before I can stop myself. This bright boy was the newborn I carried in my arms all the way to Tatooine, the infant I once cradled to my bare breast. He…I want to…

Fortunately, Luke is too far gone already and doesn’t look back. If he had, he would have seen Anakin fallen crumpled to the ground, sobbing wretchedly into my lap as I do my best to console him. That’s a hard thing to do when I am grieving too.

We’re lost. No, _I’m_ lost.

***

_< I am here, Obi-Wan. See me.>_

Abruptly, the darkness lifts, and I am standing in the Temple gardens, the same cobbled footpath onto which I remember falling. My knees ache, and my hands sting, in fact, but those pains are trifling compared to what I recently experienced at the spaceport.

“Master, are you there?” I call out.

Qui-Gon steps back onto the path and rejoins me. It is as if he’d just wandered off absentmindedly for a moment, to examine an interesting insect or flower in fresh bloom, perhaps, forgotten about me entirely, and then lost all track of the time. His wears an expression of mixed humor and mild embarrassment. In my younger days, I might have teased him for his lack of focus, but at the moment I have more important—and much less amusing—subjects on my mind.

“Master, I need to understand,” I say.

“Indeed you must,” he agrees readily. “And how do you propose to achieve this understanding?”

I’m not certain. I stroke my chin thoughtfully. “Before the— Before the, erm…ah, well, once I would have consulted the Archives.” Unfortunately, that’s not an option anymore.

I desperately want to believe that Palpatine has never ordered the wholesale destruction of the Archives. Knowledge is, after all, a form of power, and the Sith love power above all things, but then again perhaps he preferred to consolidate the power he already possesses by denying the sum total of the Jedi Order’s accumulated to knowledge and wisdom to the rest of the galaxy, so that no one could ever use it to challenge his reign—

“Then let us do that,” Qui-Gon says, interrupting the dark direction of my thoughts.

I blink, surprised. He’d never been much inclined toward books and documents and holofile recordings. True knowledge is out there, Obi-Wan, not in here, he used to say to me whenever I spent what he deemed to be too many days nose-deep in some obscure philosophical treatise or another. Invariably, I would disagree vehemently, regaling him in obnoxious detail with whatever it was I was learning, and he would smile and listen, indulgent of his Padawan but thoroughly unconvinced by him.

When we enter the Archives now, it is much as I remember it: a soaring, civilizing monument to learning and the pursuit of knowledge. I always loved the orderly layout of informational resources and the elegant structural lines of the edifice itself, one of the finest architectural achievements dating from the High Classical Period. Would that I could linger, to savor it, and out of the corner of my eye I notice my favorite sections—interplanetary politics and diplomatic relations; histories of the galaxy’s great democracies; Republic law and policy—all reassuringly familiar. Qui-Gon, however, escorts me straight to the section on spirituality, mysticism, and esoteric theories of the nature of the Force.

This is not, I admit, a section to which I devoted the attention that perhaps I should have done, and when I crouch down to inspect some of the lower shelves more closely, I realize that I cannot read the labels on many of the data storage containers; it’s like trying to see through somebody else’s corrective lenses. I grimace.

“I never did pay much attention to the literature on species with innate Force-resistance,” Qui-Gon remarks.

“Neither did I, apparently.” I heave a long, heavy sigh and rise.

The titles of the texts nearer to eye level are, thank goodness, readable. One in particular stands out. “ _Methods and Methodologies for the Identification of Force Sensitivity in 328 Known Sentient Species_ ,” I read aloud. “That one was mandatory reading in one of my Academy courses.”

“Good. So you should remember it well, Obi-Wan.”

“Yes.” I pause to reflect. “The most common indicators of Force-sensitivity in younglings are precognition, empathic awareness, and minor feats of telekinesis, in that order. You identified Anakin’s potential through his instinctive use of precognition, which quintupled the speed of his reflexes. Telekinesis is usually showy and often quite scary to bystanders when poorly controlled. Empathic awareness is the most difficult to detect, particularly in social species such as Humans. Luke has not, to my knowledge, manifested any telekinetic abilities, and his reaction times, albeit exemplary, appear to be within normal parameters. As for empathy…” I shrug helplessly.

“Hmm. Characteristically excellent recall. What else do you remember about Force-sensitive empaths?” Qui-Gon asks.

“Erm…well…besides the obvious?” I hesitate, but Qui-Gon nods encouragingly, so I continue. “I remember reading that their abilities tend to be strongest when focused on other Force-sensitives, and that this made the Order’s initiate induction examinations infinitely more straightforward to administer, but other than that…” My voice tapers off, and I wince. I’ve reached the limits of my recollection. Sometimes it’s hard not to feel like a youngling myself again around Qui-Gon.

“How many Force-sensitives reside on Tatooine at present?”

“I personally know of two individuals,” I say wryly.

“Hmm.” Qui-Gon offers nothing further.

What does he…? My mouth gapes suddenly. Tatooine may be sparsely populated, but it’s not _that_ sparsely populated! There ought to be more than two Force-sensitives on-planet, and yet, in all my thirteen years, I have never known of any others besides Luke and myself. Strangely, I’d never given this a second’s thought in the past; now I worry that I have failed to notice something going very, very wrong with the galaxy. “Are you suggesting—?!”

“I suggest nothing. But it seems obvious that Luke’s empathic abilities are fixated specifically upon you, and since you are currently at great pains not to interact with him directly…”

“He’s entering—and influencing—my dreams.” It comes out flat—a statement, not a question.

“They are not dreams, Obi-Wan.”

“Yes, Master, I know. It’s just easier to think of it that way.”

“Is it truly the easier path? I do believe your knees are skinned and bloody underneath your robes,” Qui-Gon says, raising one eyebrow. A gentle admonition.

“I would rather—” I begin, preparing to mount a spirited defense of the choices I have made over the past decade.

Qui-Gon raises a hand to halt my protest. “Very well. We have had this conversation in the past, and there is something else, more important, that we must discuss,” he says as he removes an item from a high shelf, just beyond a level that I myself would be able to reach without assistance from the Force or a stepladder. The item he holds is a simple, text-only datapad. It looks to be a training manual of some sort. Qui-Gon angles the screen in my direction and scrolls rapidly through what are easily several hundred-thousand words until finally he comes to the end of the text…except that it cannot possibly the proper end.

The document ends mid-sentence.

“I never finished it,” he says. “That will be your responsibility.” He gives me the datapad.

“What…? I don’t understand…” I stare dumbly down at it. Did Qui-Gon write this manuscript? There’s no authorial attribution anywhere in evidence, and the screen has gone blank, of course; datapads like this one have been programmed to shut off automatically to conserve energy.

“I never completed the training myself, Obi-Wan. As a consequence, there are things I cannot do, things I do not know that are important for what is to come. The end of the story will be, must be, yours to tell.”

I shake my head in disbelief. “The ‘end of the story,’ eh? And to think! You used to scoff at my preoccupation with the history books! Whatever happened to concentrating on the here and now?”

He acknowledges the hit with rueful grace and a thin-lipped smile. “The galaxy has already forgotten more than it currently knows. What we must relearn we now do without guidance from the past. The end is in the beginning, and as for the middle, Obi-Wan, time is running short.”

“That’s the second time you’ve said that.” And it makes me nervous, I don’t say.  

“Yes. I am sorry.”

Then, right before my eyes, Qui-Gon’s body begins to shimmer, like a heat distortion on the desert horizon at midday, and fades. The shelves around me, too, are blurring, and the dizzying, dislocating sensation of going into zero-gravity freefall overtakes me. My vision narrows and darkens until all I can see is the faintest pinprick of bluish light. This feels just like flying without a seat or a safety harness, and by all the terrible mysteries of the Force, how I _despise_ flying—!

_< Hurry. There is so little time left. But stay vigilant.>_

When I awaken, it is with a new and sickening certainty in the pit of my stomach: There are not only two Force-sensitives on Tatooine.

There are _three_.

At least I make it to the refresher toilet pan before I’m vomiting.

 

TO BE CONTINUED


	19. Act Three, Scene III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new Force user makes an appearance. So does a new, unwelcome Imperial presence.
> 
> And where is Luke? Oh dear…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since the last update, I’ve added a new chapter to my Leia/Ahsoka story, “[Fields of Freedom](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10666908),” as well as completed three additional Star Wars fanfics to AO3: “[His Father’s Son](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11716347)” (Luke-focused drabble), “[Incubation](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11896677)” (Obi-Wan/Dex eggpreg/implied mpreg double drabble), and “[The Sweetest Days](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11553531)” (super-sappy Luke/Obi-Wan longform smut fest). Please do check them out! :-)

With the end of another dry season, I have a bounty of fresh wild milk to bring into town for sale and trade. Nara’s herd is more numerous and prosperous than ever, and that is reason enough to rejoice. Still, it doesn’t hurt that a mere three months’ worth of bantha milk production will be enough to keep me going for an entire year; I shan’t even need to make up minor shortfalls with occasional scavenging and other miscellaneous services rendered.

As I make my way to market, I notice some unusual hustle and bustle at Luke’s school this morning. I stop to get a better look, peering into the courtyard through a small chink in the adobe wall surrounding the grounds. I’ve been using this particular chink more and more lately—it’s a handy spot for keeping regular tabs on Luke. Fortunately, my strength in the Force allows me to remain mostly unobtrusive while, let’s be honest and face it, I loiter about spying on younglings.

What I see troubles me greatly: an Imperial officer in understated gray, bearing the insignia of the Royal Imperial Academy on Coruscant, and two cadets, one female and the other male, both Human and roughly of an age with Luke.

“—expect you to answer their questions about entry standards and life as an Academy pupil. The two of you are proof positive that even these grubby rubes from Outer Rim backwaters have the potential to achieve greatness in honorable service to the Empire, and you will comport yourselves appropriately. Am I making myself understood, Cadets Ree and Kryell?” the officer is saying.

“Yes, sir!” the two cadets answer in unison and salute.

“Now, go inside,” the officer says, gesturing towards the front entrance to the schoolhouse. “Your presentations are to begin shortly.”

The cadets salute again and proceed in the direction they have been instructed.

Stars, _no_ , it’s an Imperial Navy recruitment drive! And Luke is going to be there for an earful of propaganda…

I’m expecting the officer to follow his cadets, but instead he remains standing in the courtyard, joined by another being dressed all in black who seems to have detached herself from the very shadows themselves.

She is a Mirialan; the graceful, slim figure is distinctive, and the olive-green complexion is a dead giveaway. While I do not recognize her uniform or the odd, circular-hilted weapon she bears, she is clearly an Imperial of some sort, and her imperious body language implies that she regards the Academy teaching officer as an inferior. Yet there is also something about the discipline of her movements that suggests Jedi training.

“I am wasting my time here,” she informs him impatiently. “They need to be placed under extreme duress for me to be certain.”

He is not intimidated. “Flight examinations will be administered in one week’s time. Presumably that should be sufficient opportunity?”

“Ah yes, it should. You _are_ very good at killing children, after all!” Her laughter is as bright and cold as Corellian orchestral bells.

“Only the unpromising ones.”

“Indeed.” Suddenly, the Mirialan’s head snaps sideways, like a predator that has scented its preferred prey on the breeze, and her gaze meets mine straight through the chink in the wall. I feel her strongly in the Force and see her face clearly for the first time. _Her eyes are a feral yellow_. She is—!

Fallen. Dark.

I stumble backward in horror, away from the wall, and smack into a local woman who just happens to be passing behind me. We are both knocked down to the ground. I rise and offer my hand to her, but she refuses it and manages to stand on her own. She recognizes me, of course—she is the mother of a child at the school—and her expression is one of unadulterated loathing. She spits into the dust at my feet.

Resigned to the inevitability of it all, I simply fold my hands humbly into the sleeves of my robe and bow. The woman ignores the gesture of contrition and hurries on. By the time I am able to return my surreptitious attention to the schoolyard, both the Mirialan and the Imperial officer have gone.

***

Given the unfortunate…reputation I have developed since Luke entered school, few upstanding merchants, townspeople, and moisture farmers are willing to do business with me anymore. These days, most of my regular customers are cantina proprietors. They, at least, couldn’t care less about what manner of being I am; they care only about the provenance of the product, and wild milk really does make for the strongest, best-tasting kumis.

On this occasion, I even get a tall glass of kumis, chilled and delightfully fizzy, on the house. I take it up to my usual shaded spot on the cantina’s rooftop veranda, favored because I can sit back at leisure and watch the schoolyard while also taking in the latest HoloNet news broadcast.

It is, evidently, a slow news day because the lead story is yesterday’s big race at Mos Espa. A swoop from Tamora’s shop, I note, appears to have placed somewhere in the top five, but then more than half of the shops are actually backed by Jabba’s cartel, and the Hutt rakes in the credits hand over slimy fist irrespective of who wins. You see, the old podracing arena has been retrofitted exclusively for swoop bike competitions; the Empire’s penchant for Human-supremacy affects even far-flung Tatooine, and now only sports in which Humans can ordinarily participate are legal. (Anakin was utterly scandalized and ranted about it nonstop for weeks.) Only the intensely loyal Core World of Malastare has received a special “cultural” dispensation to continue holding podraces, since that is where podracing originated…

My mind wanders from the HoloNews and in the direction of more immediate, and pressing, concerns. This new Imperial Academy presence is profoundly worrying. Naturally, there have always been regular visits from functionaries associated with Tatooine’s planetary governorship in Bestine and the expected perfunctory attempts to instill appropriate loyalty to the Empire in its young subjects, but never before have offworld recruiters ever bothered to come so far off the beaten path in search of new talent. Why the sudden need for new trainees? I wonder. Why now? I hardly dare contemplate the possibilities of what Palpatine is planning in the years to come that would require such a massive influx of new military personnel.

And that Force-sensitive Mirialan female—what is _she_ doing here? What is _her_ interest in the children, and what role does she play in the Empire? The dark side is strong in her, and stifling, like the very air is being choked out of my lungs when I get too close, but it doesn’t feel the same as Ana— no, like _Vader’s_ darkness. I reflect on this insight at length, and I am as sure of it as I can possibly be. No, she is not like him at all. But alas, my first instinct _was_ correct: There is something of the Jedi in her, though not enough for her to have been an apprentice or even an initiate. Perhaps it was another of our Order’s number who fell that has guided her training? Force preserve us if it is true.

In light of the morning’s revelations, I foresee two problems that will require dealing with: The first is this Mirialan. I don’t know what she’s up to, but it can’t be good, whatever it is, and primary responsibility must needs fall to me to ensure that her foul attentions are not drawn to Luke. Somehow. I don’t know how I’m going to go about accomplishing this necessary distraction quite yet.

The second problem is less immediately pressing than the first, but in the long run it could be the one that causes the greater headache: Luke loves flying, and the possibility—the opportunity—that these Imperial recruiters represent to him will undoubtedly prove irresistible. He already dreams of exploring the galaxy; the prospect of piloting an Imperial starfighter could come to dominate his hopes and dreams. But keeping him concealed from the Sith on Tatooine, more or less in plain sight, has been a dicey prospect at best for the past thirteen years; at one of the Academies, located on a staunchly loyalist planet where I dare not follow, it would be flat-out impossible. Therefore, for his own good—his safety, his _life_ —someone is going to have to stomp hard on those hopes and dreams before they can take firm root.

Clearly, that someone can’t be crazy old Ben Kenobi.

The poor, poor boy.

With a heavy sigh, I knock back the last of my kumis, pull the hood of my cloak securely over my head, and ready myself mentally for the short overland journey over the flatlands to the Lars homestead.

***

Owen is not, needless to say, all that pleased to see me sitting at his dining room table and sipping a cup of his farm’s delicious water. No surprises there. Beru hands him a cup of his own and announces, seemingly to the room in general, “It’s a shame the vegetables can’t cut and pickle themselves!” Then she wisely retreats back to the kitchen, leaving me to deal with Owen by myself.

Truthfully, I’d rather be helping Beru with those vegetables. The rhythmic chopping sounds of a vibroknife against a duracrete cutting board are audible even from here, and I listen to them wistfully. I’ve become quite skilled and resourceful when it comes to food preparation—oh, Dex would have been so proud!—but even so I’m always on the lookout for new tips and tricks—

“ _So?!_ What do you want now, Kenobi?” Owen asks harshly, without preamble. He takes a long swig from his cup and slams it down hard enough onto the table that some of the liquid sloshes out. Such an act wastes valuable drinking water on frivolous personal hostility, not something lightly done on a desert planet like Tatooine, and we haven’t even started talking yet.

Ah yes, this is going to go fabulously, I can just tell. I repress a sigh. “I’m here to discuss Luke,” I say.

“Yeah? What else is new?” Owen snorts. “Seems to me there’s nothing new to discuss. I’m not letting you anywhere near him, Kenobi, not unless it’s over my dead body.”

“Yes, yes, you’ve made your views on that perfectly clear many times in the past,” I say impatiently, “and I’m not here to ask for permission to _speak_ to him, never mind train him. I merely—”

Owen interrupts with a shouted string of unmentionable local curses. I’m struck momentarily speechless; this incivility is extreme even for him. My eyebrows lift. The chopping noises emanating from the kitchen actually pause for a moment before continuing.

“Don’t give me that bantha poodoo!” Owen roars. Unfortunately, he isn’t finished with his verbal barrage. “I’m not stupid or blind or deaf; I hear what they’re saying about you in town, and I know damn full well _why_ they’re saying it. You stay away from Luke, you hear? Or by all the Gods of Earth and Sky, Kenobi, _I swear_ —”

“Owen!” Beru, her expression as ominous as an approaching sandstorm, has rematerialized in the dining room. The kitchen vibroknife is still in her hand, and she points the tip of it at Owen’s chest accusingly. “I. Will. Not. Have. That. Sort. Of. Foul. Language. In. My. Home.” Each word out of her mouth is clipped and fierce. “If you feel you must continue to speak to Ben in this manner, _you may do so outside_!”

Husband and wife stare each other down. A battle of wills, to be sure, but the result is, I know, a foregone conclusion. After a half-dozen tense heartbeats, Owen’s gaze drops down into his cup, like he’s suddenly discovered something fascinating at the bottom of it. “Yes, ma’am,” he mutters, defeated.

“You know, I do believe Owen has been meaning to express our sincerest gratitude for all you’ve done to keep our farm safe from Tusken raids…right, Owen?” Beru adds.

“Oh. Yeah. Thank you,” Owen mumbles, still refusing to look at either of us.

Silence. Owen shifts awkwardly in his chair. I take another sip of water. Finally, Beru seems satisfied and, with a nod of hard-won approval and one last frown of warning, returns to the kitchen.

I clear my throat and continue where I’d been so rudely cut off. “As I was saying—I wish to alert you to the new Imperial presence on Tatooine. They are here at present recruiting students for the academies. My concern is that young Luke, given his proclivities and taste for flying, may wish to pursue a career in the Imperial Navy. I hope you understand what a catastrophic risk this would be. Were the Empire to discover that Luke is the offspring of a Jedi Knight…”

“Then Beru and I can both kiss our beloved nephew goodbye for good,” Owen concludes. As he says, he is not stupid.

“That about sums it up,” I agree. “Somehow, he must be dissuaded from choosing such a course. He best remain on Tatooine, and I believe that _you_ , Owen, are the only one who can exert sufficient leverage on the boy in this respect.”

Owen grimaces and rubs his forehead with thinly-veiled exasperation. He knows, probably better than I can possibly imagine, how difficult that is going to be with one as headstrong as Luke. His gaze returns to his cup, and it’s a long time before he speaks again: “When you brought him to us all those years ago, I promised that I would protect him. I keep my promises, Kenobi.”

“I know.” I would never question the fundamental goodness and moral fiber of this man, despite our differences, or his devotion to family.

“No time like the present, I suppose,” Owen says and rises tiredly to his feet. “Beru, tell Luke to come down here! I want to talk to him!” Owen calls out.

“Luke’s not here! He went directly to Merl Tosche’s place after school to play with friends,” Beru calls back from the kitchen.

“Oh, for—” Owen grumbles as he heads to a nearby comm unit and punches up a voice-only line to the power station.

“Tosche Station,” a light, feminine voice answers.

“Camie, is that you?” As usual, Owen doesn’t bother with pleasantries and goes straight to the point. “Where’s Fixer? Tell him I want Luke sent on home immediately.”

“Oh.” There’s an odd pause from this Camie. “The boys all headed out with Merl a couple of hours ago.” Another odd pause. “And no, Mister Lars—I don’t know where they went or when they’ll be back. Sorry.” Yet another odd pause. “Sorry, uhh, sorry again, but I gotta go. Customer.” Then the line to the station disconnects with a ping.

“Dammit!” Owen slams his fist against the comm unit. “Where has that infernal wastrel Tosche decided to go now?! And _where_ has he taken Luke?!”

I wince inwardly but say nothing. Luke’s chatter about podracing to Anakin at the spaceport reverberates through my head. I have a very bad feeling that I know where they went…and it’s a lot further from the Lars farm than Mos Eisley.

“If only Luke would just learn to stay where he belongs! If only there weren’t so much of his father in him!” Owen is still ranting.

For once in my life, I find can’t argue with his sentiments.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) It’s confirmed! People hate reading fanfiction written in first person…notes the person whose longest story on AO3 to date is written entirely in first person, har har har. :-p
> 
> (2) And in other news, yes, this chapter marks the point at which “What Dwells in Us” has officially become my longest (and longest ongoing) story on AO3 to date. Should I celebrate?
> 
> (3) Character cameos in this chapter from _Rebels_ and the novel _Lost Stars_ by Claudia Gray. If you recognize them, cool! If you don’t, don’t worry—it doesn’t matter. ;-)


	20. Act Three, Scene IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obi-Wan prepares to make his first journey offplanet in thirteen years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has sexually explicit content. (Obi-Wan/Anakin, of course.)

My mouth opens, and I am about to say aloud what, to my mind, is now painfully obvious, but Owen, his muttered curses becoming increasingly creative, has already turned back to the comm unit and started furiously punching up a new voice-only line.

The line opens with an inoffensive, crystalline chime, and Owen doesn’t bother waiting for a polite acknowledgement before shouting down it: “Is Biggs there?!”

“From whom does this inquiry originate?” The disembodied voice at what I presume to be the Darklighter estate is marvelously cool and unruffled.

This only seems to enrage Owen further. “Who do you _think_?!” he hisses.

His interlocutor’s impersonal tone does not change in the slightest. “Our records indicate that your communication originates from the legally deeded settler homestead of Owen and Beru Lars, but of course anyone—”

“I refuse to have this conversation with a droid. Get me a Human being! Now!!” Owen interrupts.

Ah. So this must be the Darklighter family’s household droid. Anakin’s inordinate fondness for inorganics never did extend to his extended family. I’d always wondered why a custom-built droid as valuable as C-3PO had returned to Coruscant with Anakin after his unauthorized excursion to Tatooine with Senator Amidala…until I met Owen Lars myself, that is.

“Unfortunately, my Masters are indisposed at the moment and cannot—” the droid begins.

“Owen, is that you?” a male—and Human—voice interrupts.

“Thank the Gods, yes!” Owen sighs in relief and, since he seems to recognize the voice of the Human in question, gets straight back to his original question without preamble. “Is Biggs there? If so, I’d need to talk to him.”

“Biggs is home,” the man confirms. Owen looks shocked by this revelation, and my eyebrows shoot up as well. When Luke gets himself into any sort of trouble, Biggs is normally right there with him. I’ve lost count of the number of times we’ve had to—

“—with Merl Tosche, and he didn’t want to stay,” the voice is saying, interrupting my ruminations, “but we have an important guest from Coruscant dining with us tonight, and I wanted Biggs here to make a good impression.”

An important _Imperial_ guest—I’d bet a thousand credits on it.

“Anyway,” the voice concludes apologetically, “I really need to go. These are not guests I want to be offending, you know.”

Yep, definitely Imperial. The Academy officer I saw in the schoolyard this morning, most likely. And if there is any Human family anywhere on Tatooine prosperous enough to try to buy their child a place in an Imperial Academy, it would be the Darklighters.

“Thanks. I appreciate the help. Enjoy your dinner with your guest.” Owen disconnects the comm unit. His shoulders are slumped, and he looks as drained dry of fight as a vaporator condenser coil is drained dry of its water harvest each morning.

Owen turns to me. The corners of his lips are turned downward in a dismayed, helpless frown. “Malastare,” he says bleakly.

“Malastare,” I agree. I’d missed that part of the conversation, it seems, while lost in my own thoughts, but this was nothing I hadn’t just already figured out on my own.

Tosche has taken Luke and some of his friends to the podraces. In order to follow them, I will have to travel offplanet for the first time in thirteen years.

***

“I’m coming with you.”

“No, you’re not,” I reply, not bothering to look up from my preparations. One last check. Seems I have everything I need…or can afford to take. I snap the clasp of the pouch hanging from my utility belt shut with an air of finality. I must travel light; my wits are the only weapon I dare carry with me offworld. Our lightsabers shall stay beneath the false bottom of the clothes chest in my bedroom where they belong.

“ _Yes_ , Obi-Wan, I am!” Anakin contradicts me with an unusual amount of vehemence.

I straighten and regard him carefully. A veritable storm is brewing over his brow. “Oh, come now. You’re only interested in this little excursion because you think you’ll be able to take in a podrace while we’re there,” I say, a deliberate attempt to lighten the mood.

Anakin’s expletives on this occasion are even more inventive than Owen’s hours earlier, which I wouldn’t have previously thought possible. I can feel my expression hardening automatically in response; he knows full well that I have never appreciated such abusive invective.

“C’mon,” he wheedles, placating, “I know Malastare far better than you do, and you know it!”

He makes an excellent point. But I am not willing to concede that yet.

“Funny thing, that. I have the oddest feeling that this isn’t the first or even, oh, _fifth_ time I’ve had to chase down a young man who’d taken it into his head to make an unauthorized journey to Malastare…” I glare, but it’s only a facsimile of genuine fury at this stage.

He knows I’m going to cave, of course, and is barely able to conceal the grin that would likely abort his impending victory over my willpower. “And aren’t you glad I’ve given you so much practice?”

I harrumph. It’s not funny. Really, it isn’t. _I_ placed that Force suggestion upon Tosche long ago, and _I_ ought to be the one to make restitution for a miscalculation that has put Luke in potential danger of discovery by the Empire. Loyal Malastare would turn him over to Palpatine faster than one of their legendary racing pods if they knew the truth of his parentage, and goodness only knows that if any Core World’s beings were to liable to notice his uncanny resemblance to Human podracing champion Anakin Skywalker, it would be those residing on the planet of podracing’s origins, especially if he were to happen to appear _at a proper podrace_ …

“Besides. Luke is _my_ son. It’s only my right as his father, Obi-Wan.” All of the humor has drained from Anakin’s voice. He’s deadly serious now, and I cannot—will not—dispute _that_ point.

“Yes, I know.” I sigh and run a hand in frustration through hair on my head that is not as abundant as it once was. This will be complicated: I dare not apply for an official exit visa off Tatooine, for it would raise too many questions I am not prepared to answer. We will have to take unauthorized transport, which won’t come cheaply…or we will have travel as stowaways. Double the number of passengers, and the logistical difficulties double as well.

I’ll have more time to consider my options on the journey to Mos Eisley. Owen has allowed me to borrow the farm’s landspeeder, so if we leave within the next half-hour, we should make it to the city limits before dusk tomorrow. With any luck, we can still manage to get to Malastare within fifty standard hours.

“All right. Let’s go,” I say as I don a nondescript, threadbare cloak.

Anakin nods and follows closely behind as I step out into the unforgiving glare of two hot desert suns.

I do not bother to lock the door on the way out: The Tir’Noti Sand People succeed in keeping most unwelcome intruders out of the Jundland Wastes, and Ben Kenobi’s reputation at present doesn’t exactly make my home a popular tourist attraction. As such, I deem it exceedingly unlikely that it will be visited, let alone molested, during what I am reasonably optimistic will be a very short absence.

***

“Obi-Wan.”

A winter wind is blowing, and the bare branches of the halspren tree do little to protect us from its chill. I lift my face upward to slate gray skies, and my breath as I exhale is a puff of white smoke. Well below the freezing point of water, I reckon. Such weather would have been unheard of in this sector of Coruscant during the days of the Republic. I’ve no idea what may or may not be normal here now.

Qui-Gon is at my side, silent and unmoving, hood raised and hands folded into the sleeves of his robes for added warmth. He awaits my attention patiently.

I gather my thoughts and begin to speak. “I have seen a dark side user on Tatooine, Master. She serves the Empire. In what capacity, I do not know.” Qui-Gon gives no sign of acknowledgement, but I know he is listening, so I continue. “She doesn’t suspect Luke. Not yet, anyway,” I amend. “But I have an even more immediate problem with Luke—”

“Why do you not keep a diary, Obi-Wan?” Qui-Gon interrupts.

“I— _What_?” I bleat the question, shocked that these would be his first words in response to my various troubles.

“A diary. An organized and dated record of your day-to-day life, as it is lived. I would have thought you would be familiar with the concept.” He doesn’t quite smile, but the delicate skin around the outer edges of his eyes crinkles.

“An organized and dated record of my day-to-day life,” I echo, openly skeptical. Such endeavors for one like myself are but vanity, and I do not condone such projects in principle. Lives are best well-lived; historical records, meanwhile, are best when left to specialists and worst when they are mere memoirs, monuments to ill-advised self-importance. I am no specialist.

“You underestimate your importance. You are a Jedi Master. A _teacher_ ,” Qui-Gon reminds me reprovingly. “They are the future”—I do not need to ask him who “they” are—“and responsibility for the future must fall to you. A diary should assist you in the discharge of this responsibility.”

“Surely this responsibility is not mine alone!” I protest. “Master Yoda survives…as do _you_. Beyond Death’s Veil, no less! You have succeeded in accomplishing a feat heretofore deemed impossible—”

But Qui-Gon is shaking his head. He does smile this time, and it is one weighted by a mysterious sadness. “My success was incomplete. I did not—” He shakes his head again and seems to reconsider what he was about to tell me. “No, I do not regret my choices,” he says firmly, and I know whatever matter he has decided not to share with me will not be broached. “You, however, must choose differently. I have every confidence that you will.”

The wind has stopped, and it has begun to snow. Thick, woolly clumps of snowflakes fall around us in graceful slow motion. 

“This is yours to finish, at least. Take it now.” Qui-Gon pulls out a datapad from the folds of his robes and holds it out to me. As soon as it’s in my hand, I recognize it as the one he showed me in the Archive. As I am about to switch it on, to examine its contents again at greater length, a snowflake clump drops onto the datapad screen and melts into a tiny spatter of liquid water. It looks almost like a fallen tear.

_< Start keeping that diary, Obi-Wan. Chaos beckons. We are running out of time. You must bring order to your mind.>_

***

Irony of ironies: We’ve stowed away on a Kuati freighter transporting medical-grade spice.

It was our best option at the Mos Eisley spaceport, though, and Anakin has assured me that, despite a dilapidated exterior that does not inspire confidence, the freighter’s customized hyperdrive, super-fast sublight engines, and cargo hold have all been installed and modified expressly for running blockades. This means that even if the freighter gets searched, the _real_ cargo might not be confiscated…

…and _we_ might not be discovered either.

Of course, sneaking onboard right before takeoff was the easy part. What has been difficult is spending the past twelve hours plus crammed behind a false partition at the far end of the cargo hold, wedged so tightly between shipping crates that there is space neither to stand up straight nor to lay down flat. Our bodies are curled and pressed against each other at differing, and awkward, diagonal angles, neither sitting properly upright nor reclining. Idly, I wonder if this is similar to what Luke and Leia experienced in the womb. Except the womb, presumably, is more pleasant.

“Stars’ end,” I groan. My muscles ache, my joints are locked, my neck has a terrible crick, and my tailbone is never going to _not_ hurt again. I wriggle about in a futile effort to find a more comfortable position and succeed only in elbowing Anakin sharply in the stomach.

“Oof! Hey, stop that!” he admonishes, his voice a whisper. “You’re just making it worse—and if they hear us, we’re bantha poodoo. At least we’re not crawling through another ventilation shaft.”

I groan again but stifle most of the sound. No, this is worse than another ventilation shaft, thank you kindly for reminding me of adventures I’d rather forget. “Are we there yet?” I ask plaintively. Inflict enough discomfort upon him, it seems, and an old man will turn back into a whiny youngling. At least I remember to whisper.

Fortunately, Anakin manages to be the one adult in the room—or should that be hidden storage space?—in this instance. “Shh, don’t think about it,” he murmurs, pressing is mouth into the join between my neck and shoulder so that I feel more than hear his words, and as one dexterous hand worms its way between our bodies and beneath several layers of clothing, I realize that he has “adult” activities on his mind at the moment as well.

“Anakin,” I begin, protesting feebly. “I don’t think this is the right time to—”

“Nah, this is _exactly_ the right time for some pleasant distraction,” he interrupts, his hot breath tickling the sensitive shell my ear. We’re so horribly positioned that I can’t possibly reach for him and reciprocate, but he’s already got his other hand down his own trousers, the rhythm he is using to touch himself identical to the one he’s assiduously applying to me.

My body doesn’t respond quickly, needless to say, given the less than ideal conditions. Anakin is nothing if not persistent, though, and eventually I feel myself swell and harden in his skillful, experienced grasp. I start to pant, thrusting into his hand, the urgent climb from arousal to ecstasy intensely sweet. He watches intently, blue eyes burning into mine as brightly as twin gas flames, as I tense and peak, remembering— _just_ —not to cry out as I spill myself into his cupped palm.

After I’ve finished, Anakin slips his hand out of my trousers and, gaze locked onto mine, unbreakable as a tractor beam, brings it up to his mouth to lick clean. Then he follows me into orgasm, face slack and beautiful in the midst of his pleasure.

“Let me taste you too,” I plead softly.

Naturally, he allows me to reciprocate, and I savor him, salty, bitter, and something uniquely _Anakin_ that I will never stop craving. He was right—it was the perfect distraction, and neither of us is even going to have to make the rest of his journey with sticky undergarments. I sigh happily; I don’t hurt quite so much anymore.

“There. See? Wasn’t that nice? Now, get some rest. We’ll make planetfall on Malastare and get Luke to safety again before you know it,” Anakin assures me.

I smile. He’s right, I’m sure. The afterglow of our lovemaking draws me into gentle, seductive slumber.

 _< Wake up. You _must _awaken, Obi-Wan! >_

Master Qui-Gon?! I am jolted out of sleep.

There is a loud, pounding noise. No, we’ve been discovered! Someone is hitting the partition, trying to get in, and I am in pain, trapped, unable to move, unarmed, practically defenseless—

An all too familiar voice calls out: “Ben? Ben, can you hear me? Are you in there?”

 

TO BE CONTINUED

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) I’m planning on writing a side-story of sorts to “What Dwells in Us” from Qui-Gon’s POV that elucidates some of what he tells Obi-Wan in this chapter. Reading it won’t be necessary for understanding the action here, of course, but if you think you may be interested, do stay tuned! :-)
> 
> (2) In other news: The new _Leia: Princess of Alderaan_ novel—thumbs up. The new _Phasma_ novel—thumbs down. Waaaaaaay down.


	21. Act Three, Scene V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Imperial Academy entrance exams. This may not go well…for Luke _or_ Obi-Wan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of those “Poor Obi-Wan!” chapters. If you like seeing him suffer, step right on up!

I freeze and squeeze my eyes shut reflexively. This shouldn’t be possible. Why is _she_ here?! Maybe I’ve become trapped in some strange dream, and if I just pinch myself and count to ten, I’ll wake up and—

The pounding noises become even louder and more insistent. How odd. I hadn’t thought the false cargo hold partition capable of withstanding such concerted abuse. When I’d moved it into place behind myself and Anakin goodness only knows however many hours ago, it had felt light in my hands, a flimsy thing, meant for appearance’s sake, not protection. Why hasn’t she broken through already…?

“Ben, are you home? It’s Beru! Ben, please open up! I need to talk to you about Luke—!”

My eyelids snap open, and there is a brief stab of shooting pain before my vision adjusts. What I see…baffles me. Instead of the industrial, brushed durasteel gray of three-by-three-meter square shipping containers packed full of medical-grade spice, I see the rough, whitewashed vertical surfaces of old adobe. I see the hairline cracks and the bits that are chipped or, in the worst of cases, crumbling outright.

I see the walls of my bedroom. My bedroom in the settler’s homestead in the Jundland Wastes, situated atop a plateau overlooking the Dune Sea.

 _Tatooine_.

I am lying in the middle of my bed, alone and curled into a tight fetal position. I try to straighten my body and discover that I cannot; it hurts too much, my joints and muscles stiff and aching, like I haven’t moved from this position for many long hours. Or possibly days. The bedclothes are twisted and tangled all around me, and they are stiff with dried sweat and…other bodily fluids. The air is musty, stale, and and ripe with the odor of my own unwashed body.

I take a deep breath and, mustering a burst of energy, pitch myself violently out of bed. I tumble immediately onto my hands and knees, legs momentarily too weak to support me. I groan and try to stand. And collapse.

I groan again. This time, when I attempt to get back onto my feet, I manage to stay upright. I realize that I am already fully clothed, the pouch attached to my utility belt hanging heavy and full. I’m even wearing my traveling cloak. It’s as if I had been planning to step out for the day and ended up falling face first into bed instead. The last thing I remember clearly—

Beru is still hammering at my front door. “Ben?! Please, it’s important! Ben!!” she shouts, her voice becoming almost shrill in her desperation.

“I’m coming, Beru! Just give me a moment!” I call out.

The pounding stops. She’s heard me. The relief I feel from her is palatable.

Through force of habit, I look down at myself. I’m a mess. My robes are wrinkled and askew, like I’ve been sleeping in them…which I have a very bad feeling is exactly what I have been doing. I rake my hands through my hair, which feels matted and unclean, and resign myself to the fact that any further attempts to make myself presentable will result in abject failure.

One last deep breath, and I open the door.

“Oh thank the Gods!” Beru exclaims. “I was afraid you weren’t here!”

“My apologies. I’m afraid you caught me taking a bit of a nap.” Needless to say, diplomatic skills honed over the course of a lifetime spent in the hallowed halls of Republic political power do not fail me now. And I’m not even certain what I’m telling her is a lie.

Beru’s gazes sweeps comprehensively over my disheveled appearance, and she sniffs, nose wrinkling slightly with displeasure. I must not smell very good; shame gnaws at me. Fortunately, she seems to take what I’ve told her at face value. “Understandable. You must be exhausted after your long journey,” she says, mollified, and with no small amount of sympathy.

“Would you like to come in?” I ask. “I’ll put the kettle on—”

Her nose wrinkles again. I suppose my home doesn’t smell very good at the moment either, and my horror at myself intensifies. “No, that’s all right, but thank you for the offer.” Beru knows her manners. “I’m afraid there isn’t time. Owen forbade it, you know, but Luke never listens, and just this morning we found out he’d signed on anyway and—”

I hold up one hand. I am confused by this barrage, but I conceal it. “Hold on. Slow down. What is this that Luke signed onto?”

“The Imperial Academy entrance exam! And the flight exams are _today_!” Beru huffs with exasperation.

For a moment all I can do is stare at Beru, dumbstruck. I’d overheard that Academy recruitment officer saying that the exams were to be in a week’s time. Has the schedule changed…?

“They’re down at Beggar’s Canyon. Apparently the Darklighters succeeded in convincing them that it was the best place to administer the flight exams. Thought it’d give Biggs an edge, I suppose. But Luke is a better pilot than Biggs, always has been, and—”

Ah, I think I’ve finally gotten the gist of things. I take a deep breath and nod.”Let’s go,” I tell Beru.

Luke’s safety remains my responsibility, and I have a job to do. I will have the luxury to worry about my own…difficulties later. Hallucinations and lost time could well interfere with my ability to do my job well, you say? Ha! Don’t be ridiculous! I laugh in the face of my own incipient madness.

Right. Just keep telling yourself that, Kenobi. Repeat often enough, and it might become true.

***

The Lars farm landspeeder is parked just outside the walls of my homestead compound. It looks the same as when I last saw it, and I do not dare ask Beru whether she walked here today or if she took the speeder; I do not want to know whether I just imagined borrowing it to take to Mos Eisley.

She did mention something about my “long journey.” I’m not sure what she meant by that. I’m not sure if I truly _went_ anywhere at all.

Beru gets behind the wheel. I climb into the passenger seat beside her without comment.

It’s but a short drive to Beggar’s Canyon, and most of it passes with silence between us, fluctuating uncomfortably between easy and tense at various intervals. I am able, however, with a few well-placed, delicate leading questions, to ascertain what has been occurring over the past week: Merl Tosche had indeed planned to take Luke and three of his young friends to Malastare to watch a podrace he had entered with his own custom-built pod. However, when an ion storm began raging through the outskirts of the Chommell Sector, their transport had to be rerouted through Chandrila, where the possession of unlicensed vehicles deemed an endangerment to Human life—a category which most definitely includes racing pods—is a crime subject to local planetary enforcement. Tosche’s pod, it seems, was discovered during a routine search and duly confiscated. As minor children, the four boys could not be charged with any crime and were placed on commercial transport direct back to Tatooine. They have been home for three days. They never made it to Malastare.   

Tosche himself was detained and placed under arrest. The evidence against him is pretty incontrovertible, I’d say, and he will surely be found guilty. What then? Will he be fined or imprisoned outright? Probably the latter, what with the growing obsession throughout the Empire for what might charitably be called punitive justice. A distant memory of a HoloNet bulletin about Chandrila’s commitment to prison reform and prisoner rehabilitation is some small solace. But once again, I can do nothing other than conclude that Tosche’s predicament is _my_ fault. I thought I was protecting Luke when I placed that Force suggestion in his mind, but in the long run it hasn’t played out like I had anticipated…even if Luke, no thanks to me, is safe for now. Tosche Station is a veritable institution in this part of Tatooine—what will happen to it in his absence? I dread the very real possibility that, if it is replaced, what replaces it will be worse.

***

By the time that Beru and I arrive at Beggar’s Canyon, the flight exams have already begun. A circular course has been laid out in and around the canyon mouth on the northwestern slope, and it appears that the Darklighter’s skyhopper has been conscripted as the test vehicle. As the skyhopper approaches us and lands, a huge cheer goes up.

A gaggle of spectators, mostly students and their families and a miscellaneous handful of curious locals who have probably turned out purely for the show, are clumped together near the finish line. The Darklighter boy, Biggs, emerges from the skyhopper, grinning from ear to ear. He has done well, and he knows it.

The Imperial recruiter, armed with a pair of advanced macrobinoculars, stands slightly off to the side with his two cadets. The female cadet holds a timer; the male cadet is working a datapad, taking furious dictation from the recruiter. The Mirialan is present as well, her arms crossed around her chest, looking bored.

I don’t want them to see me. While Beru goes to join the rest of the group, I make my way slightly down the leeward side of the canyon mouth. It gives me a good view of the examination course but keeps me out of the direct line of sight of the Imperials. I can see Beru approaching Luke, though, and while I am too far away to hear her, I can guess what she is saying to him because he shakes his head violently and storms off to rejoin the other children who are waiting their turn, pouting—

So Luke hasn’t had his turn on the course yet. Thank the Force for small blessings.

I study the course layout with the eye of a being with a hundred-thousand lightyears’ more experience with flying than he ever wanted in his life. It is, I will admit, comprehensive, testing speed, control, maneuverability, and reaction times in equal measure. It also requires extreme vigilance; the Mirialan wasn’t joking when she said that the Academy recruiter was good at killing children!

Naturally, it won’t kill Luke. He has been flying this canyon since the age of seven, and if his friend Biggs can ace the exam, then so can Luke. If he draws instinctively upon the Force to further improve his performance, however, that Mirialan will detect it, and I worry about what the Emperor may have empowered her to do to Force-sensitives…

“Boy oh boy. Standards sure are slipping, aren’t they, Obi-Wan? Even _you_ could complete this course with one hand tied behind your back. Of course, _I_ could do it with one hand tied behind my back _and_ both eyes closed—”

“No, no, no! You are _not_ here. Go away!” I interrupt, hissing, pleading desperately.

Anakin does not oblige. He merely sniffs with arch disgust in the direction of the course, like a wine connoisseur being offered a glass of vinegar, folds his legs, and sits down on the dusty ground near my feet. His arms are crossed in an almost comedic imitation of the Mirialan female. They both have plenty of reason to be bored by the proceedings, I suppose.

As long as I remain standing and keep my gaze focused on the canyon, I can almost pretend he’s not there. Almost.

The next few children fly the course poorly, committing elementary errors and evincing a general lack of good judgment. Disqualifying, no doubt, and embarrassing—but I’m grateful that nobody is injured in the process.

And then it’s Luke’s turn. With a complicated mixture of pride and dismay, I watch him fly like a consummate professional. He doesn’t _need_ the Force—flying here is as easy as vaporator maintenance back home with Owen. He may already be the best pilot this side of the Dune Sea, _and he knows it_.

I watch the skyhopper begin the course’s final steep descent. Luke adds a spin as the skyhopper goes into freefall, pure show off, but in so doing, I realize with a sickening flutter in my stomach, he has miscalculated. Disastrously. That spin has subtly altered the angle of approach, only a few fractions of a degree, but he is flying so fast that only a being strong in the Force would be able to act sufficiently quickly to make the correction—

“Hmm, too bad. Guess we’re going to have to do something about that,” Anakin says from somewhere around my knees.

I look down. His right hand is outstretched and his eyes are closed, brow furrowed in concentration.

“Goodness, no, Anakin, what are you doing?!” I gasp.

Luke doesn’t make the second to last turn. He doesn’t make the last turn, either, and then the skyhopper hits the ground and skids into an uncontrolled, ungraceful stop approximately fifty meters from the finish line. A giant cloud of dust rises in the distance. A giant gasp of horror rises from crowd of onlookers.

I have to bite down on my lip to stop myself from swearing aloud. I extend my senses into the Force, trying to feel for Luke’s presence. Oh stars. Is he safe? Is he all right—

“Well, well, well. What do we have here?” It’s the Mirialan female. Did she sense it when I used the Force…?! Her eyes gleam a sickly yellow, and the set of her mouth is predatory. She is reaching for that strange, circular-hilted weapon. “And here I thought this dustball was going to be one big bust. Yet the whole time, an _old man_ is—”

“ _Pervert!_ ” a woman shrieks. I know this woman; she’s the mother of the child I bumped into the other day—

And suddenly I’m being tackled and thrown to the ground. And punched. And kicked. By more meaty fists and booted feet than I care to count. My head and my stomach take the worst of it initially, knocking both the wind and the wits temporarily out of me. I can taste salt and iron in my mouth; I have bitten my tongue. I dare not fight back and try to make myself as small as possible, turning onto my side, tucking my knees into my chest, and covering my face with my arms.

“He’s always hanging around the school, always watching, getting off on it,” the woman is snarling. “He likes little boys!”

The crowd roars its outrage, and their attacks on me double in ferocity. Scattered mutters of agreement about my alleged perversions from other attackers, and their attacks intensify further. I try rolling about in the dust and the gravel to dodge some agonizing blows to my kidneys, but nothing seems to help, and I cannot, must not, attempt to escape. I am whimpering, leaking tears, gasping, choking, coughing up my own blood. There’s no salvation. And alas, I won’t be able to take much more of this abuse before…

Distantly, I hear the Academy recruiter saying, voice stiff with ill-disguised repulsion, “Come. Let’s go. This pathetic sod is no threat to us. The rabble will take care of him. We need not stay and watch.”

The beating continues until I lose consciousness.

 

TO BE CONTINUED


	22. Act Three, Scene VI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of the beating. Can it possibly get any worse for Obi-Wan? Why yes, yes it can.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an important chapter, but it’s also _very_ painful for Obi-Wan…and meant to be that way.
> 
> On the (somewhat) lighter side: Since the last chapter update, I’ve written a Star Wars/Velvet Goldmine crossover fic titled, “[Gimme Danger](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12108714),” which features Vaderkin, bittersweet obikin, and…well, read it and find out! X-D I’ve also added [a slew of new drabbles](https://archiveofourown.org/series/692424).

I’ve never suffered more serious injury to my person. Not six years ago during the so-called Sandstorm of the Century, not during the Clone Wars. Not during _any_ of my years as a Jedi of the Order in the service of the Force.

I serve the Force still. I do.

Even if the rest of the galaxy believes that I would ever want to…! That I am a…a… No, say it, Kenobi. _Say it_. Saying doesn’t make it true, but it does make it real.

They believe that I am a pedophile, and that I watch and want Luke to gratify my own perverted sexual desires. This is, I have to admit, a logical conclusion. I have told myself again and again and again that it’s better this way. Safer, oh so much safer, than the truth. Safer for me. _Safer for Luke_ should something untoward ever happen to me _._ Like now, for example. I remind myself of that one more time for good measure as my fingers curl like dewback claws into the bloodstained sand.

For what _is_ the truth, anyway? That I don’t harbor those sorts of feelings for the son, but that I fantasize regularly about fucking his father? And never quite got around to mentioning it to anyone, including the dead, not dearly departed Master Qui-Gon? Ha! I’m pathetic—and _that_ is the truth.

The mob got tired of assaulting me, eventually. There’s less fun in it if the victim doesn’t try to fight back. I learned that somewhere. If my ears weren’t ringing and my head weren’t aching quite so much, I’d probably remember where. They are gone now, all of them; I am alone. Yet I remain where I first fell.

I have no one to help me up. Beru is a friend, but she wouldn’t dare risk being seen with me in such circumstances. Besides, Luke is her first priority, and after what happened to him in the skyhopper…

And as for Anakin? He’s not here. In fact, he’s nowhere to be found.

“Anakin…?” I croak, my throat as parched as the desert. The crunch of grit between my teeth suggests that some of the desert is actually inside my mouth as well.

No response. Not even the harmonic lowing of a free-roaming bantha herd or the hollow roar of distant krayt dragons.

The suns have already set, and the temperature is dropping. Beggar’s Canyon is a fathomless black mouth in the darkness. The Sand People call it The Mouth for good reason. It could swallow me whole, and I could find respite and peace in oblivion. But it won’t. No, _I_ won’t. And at some point, I know, I will pick myself up and return home.

At some point. Just not right now. Later.

***

Winter has arrived, the sky is ominous and gray, and the Temple Gardens are covered in a fresh, crisp layer of snow.

Qui-Gon is lying on his back directly on the unforgiving, frozen ground. The halspren tree above him, dormant and denuded of all its leaves, offers little shelter, but Qui-Gon’s head—and only his head—is cradled in Dooku’s lap. I have not seen Dooku’s apparition in the Netherworld of the Force for years, and as before, he is much younger than he was when I knew and fought him as Darth Tyranus. As Dooku bends forward, bringing his face down close to Qui-Gon’s, a sweep of his dark hair falls forward like a curtain to conceal them both from view.

When I approach them, curious to hear whatever it may be that Dooku is telling Qui-Gon, Dooku disappears. How strange. For a split second I thought it looked like he _became_ the halspren tree. No, impossible. The tree was already there…

“Did I ever tell you that I loved you when I was alive? I never did, did I, Obi-Wan? For that, I am truly sorry,” Qui-Gon says without preamble.

“Master?” I ask, flabbergasted, kneeling at his side, heedless of the snow on the ground. Where has _that_ come from, I wonder…?!

“Old memories. Do not mind me.” Qui-Gon gazes off into the distance, slightly to the left of where I am sitting. With a sickening jolt, I notice how ill he appears, tired and frail, complexion almost a match to the sky overhead. His comments of late about keeping a diary—oh, stars…! What is wrong with him?! He’s already dead; he can’t possibly be—

“I believe there is something you wish to ask?” he interrupts before I can quite reach the only logical conclusion. He addresses me forthrightly, although he continues not look at me.

“Yes.” I recall how close I came to direct confrontation with that Mirialan Imperial and wince. I do not hurt here, thankfully, but simple memory of the beating I took instead is plenty painful enough. “Palpatine is destroying all of the galaxy’s Force-sensitives, isn’t he? That’s what…what _she_ was here to do, wasn’t it—to find children and eliminate them before they grow up to become a threat to his hold on power?”

“Yes. You were wise to deceive her as you did.”

“That wasn’t deception, Master, that was…” I hesitate, seeking a diplomatic turn of phrase, and wince again when I cannot summon a suitable one.

Qui-Gon turns his head to face me, grunting softly at the pain the effort clearly inflicts upon him. “Nevertheless. Often, we do not fully understand the consequences of our choices. I certainly did not.”

“What do you mean, Master?” I am confused; I do not know what he’s referring to.

“Long ago, I made a choice that took me one step down the path into the darkness.” I open my mouth in shock, but Qui-Gon raises a trembling hand to forestall my questions and protestations. “No, I did not succumb to the dark side, but it was a path from which there was no return. I do not regret that choice, but as a consequence, one of my last thoughts before I passed into the Force was selfish, and I could not achieve perfect unity with that which dwells in all life in the universe. Now I am fading, Obi-Wan. My time is nearly done.”

“Master, no—!” I gasp. I take his hands and clutch them tightly; they are ice-cold.

He smiles, gentle, though it looks more like a grimace. His eyes are glazed and unfocused, and when he speaks, his voice has fallen to a whisper: “Yes, Obi-Wan. You must complete the training alone.”

“But I—”

“Listen to me,” Qui-Gon interrupts, urgent. “If you are to succeed in your mission, you must not walk my path. _And you must not lose sight of what is real_. The storm…” He coughs, wretched and hacking, and I can do nothing but watch helplessly. “The storm… in you…” he wheezes, “do not…embrace…” The coughing returns, worse this time, and there is blood in it. Red blood that speckles the white snow.

By the “storm” he means Anakin. Of course Qui-Gon knows I have been losing my ability to distinguish between waking and dreams, and now he is telling me that the only one solution to the problem—

“Obi…Wan…” My name spoken so quietly that I do not so much hear as _feel_ it. Qui-Gon’s eyes drift shut. His expression is slack; his hands go limp in mine.

The end is nigh. I’m shaking; my heart feels like it is caught in a vise. Tears began to roll unchecked down my face, collecting in my beard and blurring my vision. By the time I have blinked them away, the Temple Gardens in winter, Qui-Gon’s beloved halspren tree, and Qui-Gon himself, have disappeared. No fanfare. No trace. It is like none of it ever existed at all. There is nothing. Just…nothingness.

_< Never forget that you are loved.>_

“May the Force be with you, Qui-Gon Jinn,” I say. It’s the only thing _to_ say.

***

My home is shamefully unclean, and my unmade bed is particularly appalling. Unfortunately, I am no better…and in no condition to do anything other than to fall into it and sleep the sleep of the dead. I do not dream, or if I do, I do not remember it.

Anakin is not here.

When I awaken, unreckoned hours or days later, I rise only long enough to stumble into the refresher and relieve myself into the already half-full toilet pan. I feel lightheaded and nauseous, disconnected; I cannot focus sufficiently reach into the Force. Oh, and the smell is…indescribable. I barely make it back into the bed without losing consciousness. I sleep more.

Anakin is not here.

Waking the second time is harder. I feel weaker, more seriously ill, than I had previously. No need to use the ’fresher—a very bad sign. I know I must take in fluids, even though my stomach—whichever part of it wasn’t pulverized by the beating I took—clenches in agony at the very thought. Furthermore, and paradoxically, the dirtier my bedclothes become, the more I wish to remain buried beneath them. Some vestigial, animal part of my brain recognizes the sour, musky odors exuded by my own unwashed body and knows its nest, its place of rest, of safety and comfort.

Rising from bed might be the hardest thing I’ve done yet…and accessing my underground storage larder is beyond me. I’m too weak, too grievously injured, to climb the ladder, and the only food or drink available above ground is a small container of lightly fermented milk I’d intended to strain for yogurt. It’s safe to consume like this, however, so I sit down and sip slowly, the drink strongly acidic yet creamy, careful as I can be so that my empty stomach does not try to reject it.

Anakin is not here.

Some strength does return after eating…enough to consider bathing, at least.

There is not a patch of skin bigger than the area of my palm anywhere on my body that is not bruised or abraded, and my jaw is so swollen, eyes blackened and lips split in three places, that I barely recognize my countenance in the mirror hanging on the wall of my refresher. Divesting myself of my soiled, tattered clothing is a new and heretofore undiscovered form of torture, and I do not bother using an exfoliating stone—I simply massage small amounts of bathing oil into aching joints and muscles with equally aching bare hands.

I am fortunate, I suppose, that no bones have been broken. When I expand and contract my diaphragm experimentally, I detect no cracked ribs either. The physical damage to my person, such as it is, is superficial and should heal fully, given time. Nevertheless, it still takes me over an hour to pick the grit from those superficial wounds, and by the end of _that_ process, I am exhausted once more.

Naked and soul-weary, I crawl back into bed. It’s the only thing to do. Master Qui-Gon is well and truly gone. Anakin is not here. I am alone—all alone. Overwhelmed by this new isolation, I bury my face in a pillow and cry. And because I’m alone, I do not attempt to stifle my sobs, and then outright howls, of grief.

***

I hear crying. The sounds are my own…as well as those of another. It’s a little boy. _Luke_. He is curled up on the floor in the far corner of my bedroom, wretched and miserable and rocking back and forth as he weeps.

He seems to become aware of me at the same moment as I become aware of him. He looks up, sees me, sniffles, scrubs violently at his face, and clambers awkwardly to his feet. I feel his unabashed, innocent concern wash over my spirit like warm, cleansing bathwater. “Is something the matter?” he asks. Evidently, my sorrows have distracted him for the present from his own. “Hey, aren’t you my father’s friend—”

“Luke.”

“ _Father!!_ ”

Anakin isn’t halfway down the freighter’s boarding ramp before Luke crashes bodily into him. Laughing, he sweeps Luke up off his feet into a giant, whirling embrace before dropping him gently down onto the solid, dusty ground of the Mos Eisley spaceport.

Luke, though, doesn’t want to let go, and he continues to cling to Anakin desperately, and I can see that his face is flushed and puffy from crying. “Oh FatherFatherFather _Father_!” Luke wails into Anakin’s chest. “I was so _stupid_ —! I messed up the flight exam—”

“Shhhhh, it’s okay, Luke, it’s okay, shhhhh, it’s okay,” Anakin says, stroking his son’s head soothingly with one hand, the other still wrapped affectionately around his waist. “The exams are every year, and you’re a great pilot. Next year, I’m sure you’ll—”

“ _No!_ ” Luke wails and begins crying again, louder and more hysterical than before. “That’s just it! Uncle Owen says I’m not allowed. He’s already told the school and everything, and I c-can’t t-take the exams…n-not w-without p-permission...” Luke’s words devolve into incoherent sobs.

Oh, thank goodness. Well, it seems like Owen has solved one of our problems for the next few years, at least. Once Luke reaches the age of eighteen he won’t need a guardian’s permission to undertake Imperial Academy entrance examinations any longer...but I shall worry about that when the time comes.

“Hey, look here.” Anakin is trying to distract Luke with a change of subject. He digs something out of his pocket and holds it in front of Luke’s face: an ignition switch for a racing pod engine. “Look what I got you from Malastare—!”

But Luke isn’t consoled by the gift. He simply shakes his head violently and continues crying.

“Isn’t this what you wanted?” Anakin asks, befuddled.

“M-merl T-tosche’s in j-jail for t-ten y-years,” Luke says between sobs. “And his racing pod—it’s been destroyed! They said it was illegal in Chandrilan space. _All our work for nothing!_ A-and Aunt Beru says I’m gr-grounded for l-life, anyway.”

Hmm. Ten years?! I was right to be concerned about Tosche—for better or for worse what has befallen him is partially my fault. Even if it was to protect Luke and the Lars family. But if Luke is complaining about being grounded, that means he didn’t suffer any serious injury from the skyhopper crash. Only blows to his pride, I presume. Thank goodness for small blessings.

“You have to obey your Aunt and Uncle, Luke. You know I can’t always be here. They love you and only want to keep you safe,” Anakin is saying.

“No, they want me to become a farmer like them,” Luke mumbles petulantly. His tears are finally beginning to abate. Eventually, they stop entirely, and, feeling stronger, perhaps, he slips from Anakin’s embrace.

As he does so, Anakin turns and looks at me. He is, once more, as Luke imagines him—bearded and generously proportioned—but he is still my Anakin. I check myself; fortunately, I just look like a veteran spacer, generic and generally forgettable. “Hey, c’mere,” Anakin calls out to me, arm outstretched and beckoning. “You’ve been having a very hard time of things lately, too.”

I can’t help myself; I fall forward towards him, filled to bursting with intolerable _need_. He catches and kisses me on the lips. Deeply. Comprehensively. He is hungry for me too. While it’s not the sort of kiss that is a prelude to sexual activity, it’s not merely a friendly kiss, either…and it goes on for a long, long time.

When we do manage to separate, Luke is staring at us, tear-reddened eyes wide, as round and shiny as Tatooine’s two moons. Oh stars, what does he think he sees?!

Anakin snickers at his son’s shocked expression and sweeps Luke back into a hug with his right arm…and me into the same hug with his left. “One place, two people I love,” he says jovially. His happiness is infectious; I smile, and so does Luke. And then Luke is hugging me too, and I am hugging them both, and it feels absolutely wonderful. Miraculous. Like the three of us are joined body and soul. In this moment, I can almost imagine that we are a family.

Almost.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Just another reminder that I’m working on a side-story of sorts to “What Dwells in Us” from Qui-Gon’s POV that should illuminate some of what happened between him and Obi-Wan in this chapter. Not need-to-know stuff or anything, but if you think you may be interested, do stay tuned! :-)


	23. Act Three, Scene VII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obi-Wan recovers from his many ordeals, and Luke visits him at his home in the Jundland Wastes… _for real_.

Recovery, both of body and of mind, takes time.

I face each new day as it comes, keeping my focus on the here and now, as Master Qui-Gon taught me so long ago. It is a slow process. Each morning I awaken, not feeling appreciably better than I had upon going to bed the night before and wishing I could fall back into oblivion, but as days turn to weeks and week turn to months, the gradual improvement to my health becomes undeniable.

Ordinary household chores are arduous at first. Simply cleaning the toilet pan and harvesting the vaporator water each morning become challenging endeavors, and my stomach will tolerate no more than two small meals a day before registering its protest in a manner that requires another difficult emptying of the toilet pan. This inability to eat as heartily as I should probably delays my recovery still further—my many wounds, though superficial, are not healing as quickly as I’d like and thus require extra effort to keep from becoming infected—but at least it means that the food I’ve kept in storage will last me far, far longer than originally anticipated.

There is a palpable sense of relief when I am able to rid the ubiquitous sand, dust, and grime from each and every last corner of my living quarters. Clean room, clear head, or so it is said. It takes awhile longer, though, before the act of methodically tidying up around the home is in and of itself soothing and pleasurable again.

The first time I make it out to the eopie stable to do laundry is another major milestone. The state of my clothes by this stage doesn’t bear discussion; one more day and I would have started going shamelessly nude about the house like Anakin. The state of my _bed_ clothes, meanwhile…ah, let’s just say that they’re developing their own unique Force signature. Master Qui-Gon probably would have instructed me not to throw them into the Cee-oh-too. “All life is sacred, Obi-Wan. It is not a Jedi’s place to decide what is permitted to live or die,” he would have lectured me, half in seriousness, half in jest.

Oh well. Unfortunately for the nascent life in my bedclothes, I am not in a particularly merciful mood today. I laugh aloud as I punch the Cee-oh-too’s START button.

I can’t remember when I last indulged in such easy laughter. The muscles of my face hurt from this unaccustomed exercise, but they hurt in a good way. I must make a point of working them regularly…before my sense of humor atrophies from lack of use as well.

My guffaws awaken the Sullustan’s dewback, who in the years since the Tir’Noti Sand People gifted it to me, has become a regular, if inconstant, lodger. Even after six whole years, I still do not know if it is male or female, and I haven’t bothered to name it. I do not feed it on any schedule either, but it seems to find sufficient forage in the immediate vicinity of the Wastes, and my eopie stable provides valuable warmth and safety. The dewback cracks open one amber, reptilian eye, favoring me with a long-suffering look. Then it rolls over, huffs, and goes back to sleep. Its resonant, trumpeterflute snores are an oddly melodious counterpoint to the thumping and swishing of my laundry machine.

The local bantha herd has been thriving with Nara as its new Matriarch, I would presume, but I have not visited with them lately, not even to take their milk, and I have not been watching them as much as I used to. Truth be told, a large part of the reason for this neglect is because I do not need to be outside with my trusty pair of macrobinoculars, watching the Lars farm and checking on Luke’s welfare anymore…

…because nowadays, _he_ comes to _me_. In my dreams. Not every night, no, but often enough that I am no longer surprised by his presence. We are, quite possibly, the only two Force-sensitives resident on Tatooine, and, untrained, Luke’s empathic awareness draws him into my consciousness like trace amounts of water in the atmosphere are drawn into the condenser coil of a moisture farm’s vaporator.

Then he wallows, fuels, and feasts upon the part of Anakin which dwells within me. Love, it seems, does not diminish when shared. Instead, it grows and grows and grows into something wondrous, something of exquisite beauty, like a tiny seed that becomes a mighty tree. I’ve allowed this because it makes Luke happy to imagine that his father is with him in his dreams—and because, if I’m honest, being together with the father and the son like this may be the closest to paradise in this desert purgatory that I have yet known. In a sense, Luke has become my son too.

But he does not, thankfully, recognize me. He sees a friend…and his father’s male lover. He does _not_ see crazy old Ben Kenobi of the Jundland Wastes: hermit, bantha whisperer, and rumored sexual deviant.

Confirmed fantasist.

I am not ready to break his heart.

***

I wait until I’m fully recovered before I think seriously about laboring to replenish the stock of food in my underground storage larder. _That_ , inevitably, requires a shopping expedition; if I believed I was keeping my head down in Anchorhead before, stars’ end do I have to keep my head down now! For whatever reason, though, the market is especially busy today, and I find it relatively easy to blend in with the crowd and purchase everything I require with a minimum of fuss.

I make a start on the food preparation as soon as I have returned home. With the notable exception of bantha meat and milk products, all foodstuffs on Tatooine are imported from offworld. The availability of any particular item is never guaranteed. The best practice, therefore, is to buy in bulk whenever possible and then salt, spice, pickle, jelly, and/or ferment anything that cannot be consumed immediately to be stored underground. There is an art to food preservation, and it is one in which I find much enjoyment. Endless varieties of preserved foods, endless subtleties of flavor—I have experimented for untold numbers of hours, and I am still learning.

On this occasion, I make two-dozen containers’ worth of syrupy sweetmeat chutney, plenty of treacle and vinegar for taste, with finely-chopped shuura fruit fresh from the annual harvest on Naboo. The fragrance is of summer orchards and lakeside breezes, and the chutney itself has always been one of Anakin’s favorites. I suspect his preference relates to Padmé, but I do not ask, and he does me the favor of not telling. The fragrant sourdough flatbread for my evening meal is nearly done baking when I sense a familiar presence in the Force approaching.

 _Luke_. Luke is here.

He is knocking on the door.

I am stricken, paralyzed; I was certain—so very, very certain!—that I had succeeded in keeping these dreams-that-are-not-dreams separate from the waking world. I have not slipped up, not once, not since that awful day down at Beggar’s Canyon. I thought I’d got it under control, but now instead—

The knocking continues, and I am jolted abruptly out of my self-pitying reverie. Reflexively, pure force of habit, I look down at myself. I am not wearing a spacer’s utilitarian togs. Instead, I see the well-worn but freshly laundered earth-toned robes of my exile. The backs of my hands when I hold them out in front of me for inspection are spotted with age and sun exposure, the skin dry and losing its elasticity.

So, I am awake, and Luke is actually here.

Well then. No reason, I suppose, not to open the door for him. I have a split second to worry about what he might think of me and smooth my thinning hair back a bit. Then I offer him a gruff, mildly eccentric greeting suitable from the mouths of harmless desert hermits, but I might as well be flying with a droid at the controls. My actually mind is so fixated on relief, on knowing that I am fully awake, that I don’t bother to wonder _why_ he has come.

Luke doesn’t hold me in suspense. After a moment’s hesitation, he holds out a handsome, double-handled ceramic jug, which boasts an airtight seal to conserve what I would presume to be a liter of Lars moisture farm water, and says, “Aunt Beru sends her best wishes for a Bright Solarnen. She would have come herself, but with our primary filtration array out of service again this week, Uncle Owen needed her on the farm.”

I feel my eyebrows heading towards my (receding) hairline. On Tatooine, the longest day of the year is a holiday called Solarnen. I hadn’t realized that Solarnen was today, despite the unusual number of people out and about in town earlier, and that is mostly because I have never had occasion to celebrate it save in the most traditional fashion: keeping out of sight and out of the suns.

Luke’s evident surprise at my momentary confusion is quite telling. Clearly, he assumes, or has been told, that Beru delivers a Solarnen present to me every year. She does not. The farmed water, and more importantly Luke’s unsupervised presence at the door to my home, is obviously a peace offering, demonstrating by deeds, not words, that she does not share her neighbors’ prejudices…and that she does not hold me accountable for Luke’s “misfortune” during the Academy flight exam.

I haven’t spent time—real time—with Luke since he was an infant I could cradle in my arms. Although he looks decidedly anxious to get going and meet his friends, I would imagine, I realize I want him to stay for awhile. “I’ve just finished preparing the evening meal. Perhaps you would like to join me?” I suggest, holding the door open wide so that he can smell the bread in the oven.

That is sufficient enticement, as it turns out, and Luke does not hesitate to accept my offer. I suspect, moreover, that he has allowed his intuition to guide him in this instance; if I were intending Luke any ill, he would have sensed it.

I lay out dishes of spiced yogurt and bean paste fermenting for the better part of the year, along with a portion of newly-made chutney and the flatbread loaf, and Luke manages to inhale more food in the first three minutes of our ostensibly shared meal than I would be able to manage in thirty. I nibble sparingly and let him have most of it, contenting myself primarily with the sweet-tasting farmed water he has brought and making idle, meaningless conversation whenever his mouth is full (which is more often than not).

Once Luke is eating a bit less ravenously, I broach a more serious topic: school.

 _That_ elicits a rant, delivered so fervently and so fast that I can hardly keep up with the specifics of what he is telling me. The upshot, however, is that Luke senses he is being prevented from leaving Tatooine, and that being grounded by his Aunt and Uncle has made Luke more determined than ever to make his way offplanet permanently. He’s also jealous: Biggs, the Darklighter boy, aced his entrance examinations and was offered a place at one of the Imperial Academies, and although no one knows exactly which one as of yet, none of them are located on or anywhere near Tatooine. “It doesn’t have to be an Imperial Academy. I’ll go to any planetary flight school that’ll take me, as long as it gets me away from this miserable place! I can do it, you know, and they won’t even realize until after I’m long gone!” he declares at one point.

I feel suddenly uneasy. Anakin has been encouraging Luke’s interest in flying—inevitable father-son bonding, I suppose—but Luke also seems to be absorbing some of Anakin’s more, err, _creative_ interpretations of rules, boundaries, and limitations. This could be bad. Very bad. If he really does try to run away from home, we might not be able to stop—

“—want to see the galaxy—actually do something with my life!” Luke is whining, and there is so much of Anakin in both the content and delivery that it practically breaks my heart.

As casually as possible, I say, “The galaxy is overrated.”

“And just how would you know?” Luke is having none of my hand-waving. “Where are you from originally?”

“I was raised on Coruscant.” Yes, that should change the subject; I doubt Luke has ever met anyone else besides myself who has even _been_ to Coruscant.

“That must have been amazing,” Luke says with undisguised wonder.

“Looking back on it, I suppose it had its moments.”

“Then why are you—” Luke grimaces and looks down at what is left of the evening meal guiltily.

Desert isolation doesn’t exactly make for a popular first-choice destination. When offworlders come to live on a planet like this one, they are usually desperate to leave something in their pasts behind. Like all of Tatooine’s natives, Luke has learned long ago not to ask too many impertinent questions. In my case, however, I see no reason not to tell him the truth…from a certain point of view.

“The man I loved came from Tatooine,” I say, voice soft, wistful.

I can see Luke processing the unspoken implication of my words in the unclouded blue of his eyes and know the exact moment when he reaches the correct conclusion by the way he blushes, the way those eyes slide away from mine as he takes a hurried gulp of water to cover for his embarrassment. Goodness only knows what Luke understands of the wider galaxy, of what he has been led to suspect about me, but it is certain that he has witnessed two Human males kissing each other…!

“He never missed an opportunity to complain about it. He hated sand.” I smile. Sand was such a petty, childish thing for Anakin to hate. Luke should be sympathetic, and naturally he is.

“There are far worse places than Tatooine, Luke,” I point out. Somehow, I must make him understand how good he has it, how he ought to be content with boredom, because there is safety in boredom. But the right words do not come, _cannot_ come without disclosing secrets that must not yet be told. “The sunsets are spectacular,” I remark instead, suitably trite.

“Right.” Luke is not remotely convinced. Oh dear.

“And… Being here… It reminds me of him.” I hesitate for a moment before deciding to go for broke with more candor about the content of my dreams than, really, I ought to be daring. Then I’m speaking again, and saying what’s literally true, before I have the chance to regret it. “I suppose it’s my way of keeping the memories of our time together alive.”

“Where is he now?” Luke asks, expression idly curious, not a trace of suspicion. 

“He…he passed away. Many years ago, before you were born.”

I cannot afford to say more. Force preserve us if Luke makes the connection between what I have already told him and those vivid, poignant dreams of his father.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Some of the events of this chapter overlap with “[The Last Cup](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8178467),” a short vignette from Luke’s point of view that I wrote a year ago. You do not need to read it to understand what is happening here. But for the record: Although you may have noticed (many) thematic resonances in previous chapters, this is the very first time “What Dwells in Us” is honest-to-goodness overlapping with one of my other stories! Major milestone. ;-)


	24. Act Three, Scene VIII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obi-Wan says goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has sexually-explicit content.
> 
> FYI: The side-story from Qui-Gon’s POV I’ve been promising is titled “Sanctuary” and is in the midst of being posted [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12227670).

It has to end. I have decided.

After Luke has polished off the rest of the evening meal, I lift the water jug and test its contents. There seems to be just enough sloshing around at the bottom for one last cup. “Last cup”…? Wait, that reminds me—

“Now, correct me if I’m wrong,” I say, “but I believe it is traditional on Solarnen to give the last cup to the earth.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Luke agrees with what amounts to a verbal shrug. It’s obvious that he’s not particularly interested in Tatooine’s traditional rituals, but nor does he have any personal objections to them.

I pour the remaining water into Luke’s cup. “Why don’t you do the honors?” I suggest.

Luke is amenable, so we head outside. Solarnen’s long day is about to come to a close, and Tatooine’s twin suns are just starting to sink below the horizon as we take up a position on the west-facing side of my homestead’s plateau. The cloudless sky is painted in a blazing wash of color. The wind whispers in its secret tongue. Shadows lengthen their crooked fingers across the dunes.

Luke tilts his cup forward slowly. Water drips with a soft, dull patter into dry, thirsty ground that swallows it up immediately. In less than a minute, the damp spot in the earth has disappeared as if it had never been.

“One must experience abundance before one can comprehend sacrifice,” Luke recites in an old, Outer Rim dialectical variant of Basic. I’ve never heard this particular adage on Tatooine before—and by now I’d have thought I’d have heard them all—but the auto-pilot tone with which Luke repeats it makes it clear that _he_ has heard it on countless occasions but never bothered to unpack its meaning for himself.

To me, though... To me, his words resonate with an immediacy both poignant and intensely painful…for of course it is true. On a planet defined by its scarcities, I have enjoyed unexpected abundance. Pleasure. Companionship. Love. Joy. _Peace_. But nothing is forever, and I have been allowing this abundance to interfere with my responsibilities to the future of the galaxy. Now I must make sacrifices again, for the greater good. This is what it means to be a Jedi.

Luke, surprisingly, does not seem to be in any special hurry to leave, even though the Lars landspeeder is parked nearby and he had surely been planning to join his friends in town. Yet he seems loath to break our silence, and we watch the sky, lost in our own respective thoughts, until the stars came out.

“You don’t like the galaxy because it took him away from you. Is that right?” Luke asks abruptly.

Too close, Luke, much, much too close to the heart of the matter. Your insight serves you well, but it might also be the death of me.

“The sunsets truly are spectacular here,” I reply instead. I attempt lightness, but my vocal cords feel tight and overstrained. I rub my eyes roughly with the heel of one hand, pretending I had merely been staring too long directly into the fading light.

***

We watch the landspeeder recede into the distance at a somewhat ill-advised velocity. The direction it has taken suggests that Luke is heading straight back to the Lars farm, not into Anchorhead as I would have anticipated. Hmm. How odd.

“Did you know that tonight is the shortest night of the year?” Anakin asks.

My eyebrow lifts, and the corners of my mouth curl upwards. “Well, that does stand to reason,” I say with warmth and no small amount of amusement. “Why do you ask? Are you worried that we’re not going to have enough time in bed?”

“ _Yes_.”

I blink, surprised by his sudden vehemence, and spin around to look at him—

—and a brooding young man in dark Jedi tunics and tabards, roughspun cloak smoldering from the embers of Mustafar, looks back at me, glowering. I see the scar above his right brow, memento of a near-disastrous injury sustained early during the war; the shadows under his eyes, sleepless and haunted; and the leather glove, padded, fitted, and bound up to conceal the cold durasteel alloy prosthetic inside. He looks as he did when we fought, mere hours, I reckon, before Darth Vader betrayed and murdered everything that Anakin Skywalker had ever valued.

I see all of it, but I do not turn away. This is also the man I love.

“You’re right.” Agreeing is simplest, most straightforward. “Let’s go to bed.”

He takes me by the hand and ushers me indoors. The oiled leather of his glove his soft and cool against my desert-dry, chapped palms.

There are no preliminaries; we undress without ceremony and climb into bed. Anakin seizes control immediately, pushing me onto my back and parting my legs, and I haven’t the chance to concern myself with my aching joints or my fading beauty now that I am past fifty years old before his mouth is on me. He nips at the tip of my foreskin, the rapidly thickening shaft of my penis, and even at the loose, lightly furred flesh of my scrotum, teeth sufficiently sharp to elicit a series of pained squeaks. But then his fingers are prying me open, and his dexterous tongue is inside of me, probing and wet, preparing me for what is to come, and by his enthusiasm, I know he means business.

When he rises up over me and takes me to the hilt with a single thrust, the penetration does sting a bit, but it’s perfect nonetheless. Oh so very, very perfect, how we fit together. Always is, always will be. He holds my legs to keep them spread wide and my hips rise to meet his in tandem. I groan as he begins to slide in and out, setting a strong, steady rhythm. His expression is heavy-lidded with pleasure, and his eyes start to drift shut.

“Yes,” I hiss, undulating beneath him and adding a little twist that makes his eyes fly wide open again at the unexpected intensity of the sensation. “Yes,” I repeat. “More. Harder _._ ”

He obeys, driving both of us wild and near-mad with pleasure, and soon he is panting with exertion, his forehead sheened with sweat. He holds me steady against the force of his thrusts with a heavy prosthetic hand on my chest. It’s been so long since I’ve seen it, and I find myself becoming hypnotized by the glistening metal digits, so dark they’re nearly black, and the golden joints and fittings. They clench and unclench reflexively. He sees me looking and moves it slowly, teasing, to my throat…as if he would strangle me in the midst of our lovemaking. He grins at my involuntary shudder. Then he seizes my hips, the better to impale me. I can feel his scrotum crushed against my body.

I moan, desperate. The tension is coiling in my belly, about to snap, to shatter. So close…! I’m going to come untouched. “Harder,” I plead again. “We don’t have much time left. Faster, Anakin, faster, finish it, _faster_ —”

He snaps his hips hard and fast and deep into mine, once, twice, thrice, six times—and then I’m crying out and tossing my head from side to side, muscles clamping down on him as I tumble into orgasm. He joins me in my completion less than a second later, collapsing onto my chest so that he can brand my face and lips and throat with burning kisses, jerking and clenching erratically as he pumps me full of his warmth.

As soon as he goes limp, I roll him over and, slick with my own semen, take him in turn. I’m not normally good for two back-to-back rounds, but on this night of all nights—the fire, the _storm_ , rages unchecked in me. My need has not yet been sated, and my desire has not been doused; like a wetted coal, it only flares brighter. Anakin’s tightness on my still-sensitive erection is agonizing, and I’ve plunged in so heedlessly that he tenses for a moment, resisting.

“Uhhh, wait, Obi-Wan, what are you—” he begins, breathless.

I ignore his half-hearted protestations and thrust harder, faster, deeper, and more violently than I have ever taken him— _dared_ to take him—before. Harder, faster, deeper, and more violently, in fact, than Anakin has ever taken me. I am only vaguely aware of his semen dripping down my thighs, of the slap of our sweaty skin coming together again and again, of the moist squelching sounds of our lovemaking that are probably a sign of the fluids from my earlier ejaculation mingling with his blood. The unadulterated power of it is absolutely intoxicating; this ecstasy is too intense for coherent thought. However, I do glance down and see red streaks on my erection, so yes, I’ve torn him with my enthusiasm.

I don’t care, and neither does he. He is bucking and writhing and keening beneath me, and his voracious response just makes me want to ride him more roughly still. All four of his limbs twine around me, holding me close, fingers digging into my shoulders, heels pressed against the small of my back. I will have bruises. Each time I strike his prostate, he emits another tiny spurt of fluid, coating both of our torsos until we’re practically soaked in it. I bracket my arms around his head and bury my face against his neck as I continue my thrusts. His pulse flutters like insect wings against my cheek.

“Anakin, Anakin, Anakin…” I moan his name, a demand, an exhortation, _a_ _prayer_.

His reply, if it could be dignified as a reply, is breathless, babbling, incoherent. I decide to interpret that as encouragement.

It shouldn’t be possible, but the pace of our lovemaking accelerates even further. I blink droplets of sweat or tears from my eyes as I pound into him with the fierceness of a rutting krayt dragon. It hurts—oh, it hurts!—animal pleasure transmuting into actual physical pain, and I don’t care. The buildup of a second orgasm is gathering in my belly, a giant knot of tension, and it feels like it is going to be bigger, more intense, more annihilating, than the first one of the night. The prospect frightens me, but I will not, cannot, stop now—

Then all of a sudden I’m falling, falling, falling into him, into the chaos and the darkness, into my grief, my loneliness, and the knot within me unravels. The storm explodes outwards, and shouting, I begin to ejaculate, pulse after long, excruciating pulse. The storm that was in me, overwhelming all sanity, rationality, and sense of proportionality, is being returned to him, funneled back into that from whence it came. He accepts the brunt of its fury like it’s nothing, in silence, with but a tender, satisfied smile against my earlobe, a hand stroking my hair, a soft sigh and spill of semen to signal his own completion.

Truth: I have held onto this dream of Anakin for too long, endangering myself and others in order to do so. Although I do not regret my choices, it is past time to let him go. The future is still in motion.

Afterwards, he is limp and snoring peacefully on my bed, dead to the world, yet despite the unprecedented vigor of our sex, I do not feel tired. Quite the contrary, I feel restless, energized. After a moment tossing and turning while trying not to wake Anakin from his well-deserved slumber, I rise and head to the low table where I’d deposited some of the day’s purchases.

Most notable among them are a sheaf of two-hundred blank sheets of bantha hide parchment and a fountain pen. This is archaic technology, it’s true, but not obsolescent. Not, that is, to a crusty old desert hermit who doesn’t even have electricity to power his home…or to keep a datapad properly charged.

“See? I’m going to keep a diary,” I announce to the empty room.

I put a kettle on the stove for tea and sit. By the faint light of the gas flame, I ponder that topmost blank sheet for several minutes before I lift my pen and begin writing. I decide to start by explaining exactly how and why a certain anonymous charitable donation in excess of five-hundred million credits materialized yesterday in Tosche Station’s business account.

***

We stand on the edge of the plateau, looking out onto the dunes and waiting for the suns to rise. As the glittery, milky wash of stars fade, the sky lightens gradually from the darkest of indigos to the richest of fiery reds, oranges, and yellows. Enchanting. Glorious. I feel my chest constricting; my eyes begin to water. No matter how many times I see it—nothing in my humble little life has ever been more beautiful.

Save one.

“No more tears,” Anakin murmurs as he leans in close and tenderly kisses my tears away. “They aren’t you.”

“How would you know?” I laugh shakily.

“Because we are one,” he replies. It is a simple statement of fact. Then he smiles and rests his forehead against mine. I feel enveloped by Anakin’s spirit of adventure, his lust for life, his unswerving commitment to justice for the galaxy…and I can feel his love for me, bright and relentless and unconditional and pure, as it was before it decayed completely into black jealousy and anger.

I raise my hands to caress that precious face, the sensitive tips of my fingers memorizing its shape, its tiny imperfections, its scars. We kiss, sweet and long. Two hands, one of flesh and one of metal, pull me in close. His lips are soft and responsive against mine. The taste of his mouth is as comfortingly familiar to me as my own.

When he steps back, I allow it.

“May the Force be with you, Master.” He raises his hood over his head, folds his hands into the sleeves of his robes, and bows formally, bending deeply at the waist—

—and simple as that, he is gone. Like the night. Like the dust which swirls away in the wind. Like the last cup of water returned to the desert earth on Solarnen.

Far off in the distance, I hear the lowing of the local bantha herd as they appear over the ridge of a nearby sand dune, in search of the morning’s most promising sandgrass grazing. Nara leads them, and they are heading straight in the direction of my homestead. I gather myself together and descend the rocky cliff side so that I may go to greet them. It has been much too long since I’ve been in among the herd; we really ought to get reacquainted. And perhaps there are newcomers I’ve yet to meet. This should be a fine opportunity to make some new friends.

_One must experience abundance before one can comprehend sacrifice._

I have, and I do. I have known love, but sometimes love is not enough. My love for Anakin will not overthrow Palpatine’s Empire.

 _No more tears_.

No, no more. I am where I belong.

 

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Some of the events of this chapter also overlap with “[The Last Cup](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8178467).”
> 
> (2) Obi-Wan’s diary shows up in several issues of the new Marvel _Star Wars_ comics (main series).
> 
> (3) For the record, the time gap between each Act of “What Dwells in Us” is roughly six years. Luke is less than a year old in Act One, seven in Act Two, and thirteen in Act Three. That means Act Four would begin when Luke is… ;-)
> 
> (4) Okay, let’s take a moment to take stock again: What do you think thus far? Good? Bad? WTF? :-D How much (if any) more of this story can you stand? Act Three is the nadir, and hypothetically, of course, I could just call it quits here and let this be the end—but I’m not sure that would be particularly satisfying.
> 
> (5) **November 3, 2017 UPDATE** : After some deliberation, I have decided, for now, to consider this work complete at the end of Act Three. If you have strong objections to this decision, given that there is more already outlined, please do let me know. And who knows? Maybe I will change my mind again. You can subscribe/bookmark the work if you wish to stay updated.

**Author's Note:**

> The character of Obi-Wan here is the same one that appears in “[That Sleep of Death, What Dreams May Come](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7731400)” and the [From Undiscovered Countries Vignettes Collection](http://archiveofourown.org/series/563048). There will be some overlap in later chapters. However, your basic understanding and enjoyment (or lack thereof) of any of these stories shouldn’t be affected by not having read any of the others. For convenience, I have created an AO3 collection for all of these loosely interconnected stories [here](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/Star_Wars_Undiscovered_Countries).


End file.
